Qantas Airways Ltd (ASX: QAN) shares are under pressure on Wednesday.
At the time of writing, the airline operator's shares are down 2% to $10.53.
This follows news that the Flying Kangaroo has been hit with a significant cyber attack impacting millions of customers.
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Qantas shares lower on cyber attack
Investors have been hitting the sell button on Wednesday after Qantas confirmed that a cyber incident has occurred in one of its contact centres impacting customer data.
According to the release, the incident occurred when a cyber criminal targeted a call centre and gained access to a third party customer servicing platform.
It notes that there are 6 million customers that have service records in this platform. Unfortunately, although it is continuing to investigate the proportion of the data that has been stolen, Qantas suspects that "it will be significant."
The incident happened on Monday and an initial review has confirmed the data that has been taken includes some customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, date of births, and Qantas frequent flyer numbers.
However, importantly, it points out that credit card details, personal financial information, and passport details are not held in this system. In addition, no frequent flyer accounts were compromised nor have passwords, PIN numbers, or log in details been accessed.
What's next?
Qantas has contained its systems and they all remain secure at present. And as it conducts its investigation, it is putting additional security measures in place to further restrict access and strengthen system monitoring and detection. It is also important to note that there is no impact to Qantas' operations or the safety of the airline.
The airline operator has notified the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. And given the criminal nature of this incident, the Australian Federal Police has also been notified.
Commenting on the cyber attack, Qantas's group chief executive officer, Vanessa Hudson, said:
We sincerely apologise to our customers and we recognise the uncertainty this will cause. Our customers trust us with their personal information and we take that responsibility seriously. We are contacting our customers today and our focus is on providing them with the necessary support.
We are working closely with the Federal Government's National Cyber Security Coordinator, the Australian Cyber Security Centre and independent specialised cyber security experts.
Qantas shares remain up 80% over the past 12 months.
