In February Air India’s passenger was suffered from a sophisticated cyberattack by which around 4.5 million of its customer’s sensitive data was leaked by the hack of Passenger Service System provider SITA.

The crucial data includes name, date of birth, contact information, passport information, Star Alliance and Air India frequent flyer data (but no passwords data were impacted) credit card data, etc.

During this incident around 45 lakh “data subjects” worldwide and refer to personal data registered between August 2011 and February 2021.

“It was first notified about the attack on 2 February 2021 and that provided the identity of the impacted data subjects by its data processor on 25th of march.” Airline said.

On the 19th of March, the Indian National Carrier informed Air India Passengers that SITA was infected by a cyberattack. And further airlines suggest their user immediately change their passwords wherever needed to block the possible breach attempts and make sure their data security is high.

“The protection of our user’s crucial information is at our high priority and we really regret for the difficulty caused and thanks for the continued support and trust of our passenger.” Air India said.

Star Alliance Members were also infected by a Data breach

Around a dozen other air transportation besides Air India inform their passengers that some of their information was leaked in SITA’s Passenger Service System (PSS), which led to the unknown transaction from ticket reservation to boarding.

A SITA spokesperson told the experts that the data breach affects data of passengers from various airlines, which includes Lufthansa, Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines, SAS, Cathay Pacific, Jeju Air, Malaysia Airlines, Finnair.

Of the above air carriers including Air India, some of them are also part of Star Alliance, a worldwide airline network with around 26 members.

Star Alliance also told the experts that’s some of their members are also share the customer details applicable to allocate them some of the traveling advantages.

The data includes membership names, frequent flyer program membership, program tier status.

Air India also announced that they are investigating the data security measures and taken an abundant of remedial measures to make sure the data safety along with notifying and liaising the credit card issues, including securing the negotiate servers and resetting passwords of the Air India Frequent Flying Program.