Cathay Pacific shares slide to nine-year low as data leak rattles investors

Shares of Cathay Pacific slid nearly 7% to a nine-year low Thursday after it said data of about 9.4m passengers of Cathay and its unit, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines, had been accessed without authorization. Cathay said late on Wednesday that in addition to 860,000 passport numbers and about 245,000 Hong Kong identity card numbers, the hackers accessed 403 expired credit card numbers and 27 credit card numbers with no card verification value (CVV). The company said it discovered suspicious activity on its network in March 2018 and investigations in early May confirmed that certain personal data had been accessed. Hong Kong’s privacy commission Thursday expressed serious concern over the data breach and urged the airline to notify passengers affected by the leak as soon as possible and provide details immediately. Shares of Cathay Pacific slid as much as 6.8% on Thursday to HK$9.90, their lowest in nine years. That compared with a 2% fall for the benchmark Hang Seng Index .HSI. The stock pared losses and was down 4.9 percent at 0528 GMT. “People are concerned about why it took so long for them to make an announcement,” said Linus Yip, chief strategist at First Shanghai Securities. “The market demands more details and explanation.”<br/>