Portugal-Customers of the airline TAP victims of a data theft | Photo credits: Alessandro Grussu / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
LISBON, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Portuguese airline TAP informed its customers on Thursday that hackers had stolen some of their personal data, excluding payment data, who then published it on the “dark web”.
TAP said in a letter to its customers that the cyberattack, launched last month, had obtained from its computer servers the names, nationality, e-mail address, home address, telephone number and loyalty number of some of between them.
“Dissemination of personal data via open sources could increase the risk of their unlawful use, in particular with a view to obtaining other data (..) in the context of fraudulent attempts such as phishing,” TAP said. .
“There is no indication that any payment data was extracted from TAP’s systems,” she added. The airline also said it had taken steps to keep its systems working and protect other data.
TAP also advised its customers to stay suspicious and strengthen their passwords. She added that she would refrain from further contact with individual customers about this to avoid confusion.
Christine Ourmieres-Widener, chief executive of TAP, told reporters that the airline takes its customers’ data “very seriously”.
She wouldn’t divulge the number of customers affected, which some local media put at around 1.5 million, saying such estimates don’t necessarily correspond to reality. She promised new investments in cybersecurity. (Report Sergio Goncalves and Andrei Khalip. French version Alizée Degorce, edited by Kate Entringer)