Cathay Pacific announced today (Oct. 30) that unauthorised persons had logged into the system of its third-party travel technology service provider Amadeus, resulting in the leakage of about 53,000 booking records, mainly involving passenger names, flight information and the like. Cathay Pacific stressed that its internal systems and operations were not affected, and that there is no evidence that financial or payment-related data was improperly accessed. It is investigating the incident and will notify affected customers individually. Francis Fong, Honorary President of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, analysed that this incident is a supply chain risk and reminded the public to stay vigilant and guard against phishing scams.
Cathay Pacific said that on Oct. 28 it received notification from global travel technology solutions provider Amadeus IT Group, S.A. that its system had been accessed without authorisation by unauthorised persons using account login credentials. Cathay Pacific obtained further details yesterday (Oct. 29), confirming that Cathay Pacific travel booking records were involved.
Fong analysed that this incident is a supply chain risk and not an intrusion into Cathay Pacific's own systems. Although there is currently no evidence that financial or payment data was accessed, nor that any data has been misused, he reminded the public to remain alert that booking-related information such as reference numbers and names could be used to craft phishing emails or scam calls.
Fong called on the public to stay vigilant in the coming period. If they receive messages claiming to be from an airline that accurately provide flight information and ask them to click a link or provide payment details, members of the public should not readily believe them and must first verify through the official app or official website, and should not easily click on unknown links.
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