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British Airways Hacking

By rotide
Created 08/09/2018 - 10:09

British Airways joins the long list of Blue Chip names having to admit they have been hacked, on this occasion between the dates of August 21st to September 5th.

Having booked a flight with BA during this period, I have the dubious privilege of receiving an advice email from BA this morning advising me of the information stolen.

This is an excerpt and though receiving such an honest communication is 25% comforting, the other 75% is me thinking "Oh my god that's a lot of personal information out there, the CVV number also", (otherwise known as "the number on the back).

"The personal information compromised includes full name, billing address, email address and payment card information.This includes your card number, expiry date and CVV. Unfortunately this information could be used to conduct fraudulent transactions using your account. We recommend that you contact your bank or credit card provider immediately and follow their advice"

I had already called my card issuer yesterday, when I first learnt of the breach, hanging on for thirty minutes for a human at 7am. He looked through my recent purchases and said "nothing out of the ordinary here". Not "we need to cancel this card straightaway" The suggestion that the card should be cancelled came from me and was agreed to quite readily but was definitely not a standard instruction to their call staff. They are front line in these situations and as it turns out my card was fully compromised.

The email, signed by British Airways Chief Executive Officer Alex Cruz, went on to say that they are investigating how it happened and will compensate any clients suffering financial loss as a direct result of the theft and of course apologised for the trouble caused.

How do I feel about it?

At this stage I have no idea how tight BA's data controls are but as a client  I feel they have done what they can do, quite quickly and this hasn't generated any negative feeling towards  BA. The email could have been sent out a day earlier but, their reaction was relatively quick. I worry more that call staff at the credit card companies, see no natural reason to cancel a card when they have been told that the information on it has been part of a high profile hacking. I don't know if there is any system in place to warn the major card issuers of a potential flood of card queries coming from an instance of data theft but there should be some kind of early warning system if there isn't already.

 

 

 


Source URL:
https://www.newbusiness.co.uk/content/british-airways-hacking