Cathay Pacific flags data breach affecting 9.4m passengers

Cathay Pacific said Wednesday that data of about 9.4m passengers of Cathay and its unit Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Limited had been accessed without authorization. Cathay said 860,000 passport numbers, about 245,000 Hong Kong identity card numbers, 403 expired credit card numbers and 27 credit card numbers with no card verification value (CVV) were accessed in the breach. “We are very sorry for any concern this data security event may cause our passengers,” Cathay Pacific CE Rupert Hogg said. “We acted immediately to contain the event, commence a thorough investigation with the assistance of a leading cybersecurity firm, and to further strengthen our IT security measures.” Hogg said no passwords were compromised in the breach and the company was contacting affected passengers to give them information on how to protect themselves. The company said it initially discovered suspicious activity on its network in March 2018 and investigations in early May confirmed that certain personal data had been accessed.<br/>