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If you have frequent flyer accounts with various airlines, chances are you’ve received one or more emails in the past two days regarding a data breach. What exactly is going on?
On February 24, 2021, SITA suffered a “highly sophisticated” attack on its computer systems, which compromised the information of millions of passengers. More precisely, certain data stored on the servers of SITA Passenger Service Systems were consulted. The company claims to have contacted all affected SITA PSS customers and all associated organizations.
For those of you new to the business, SITA primarily provides IT services to the aviation industry around the world, including airlines, airports and ground handlers. SITA is involved in everything from operational business practices to baggage handling and passenger management.
SITA has stored passenger details on its servers, and some of this data may have been accessed. The good news is, for the most part, no passwords or payment methods have been compromised, but rather it seems to focus primarily on names, frequent flyer numbers, and elite status.
You may have been notified of a data breach even though you have a frequent flyer account with an airline that is not a direct customer of SITA. This may be the case if you have booked an itinerary involving travel on multiple airlines, if you have used your frequent flyer account when traveling with another airline, etc. For example, here is part of the email I received yesterday from American Airlines:
American is not a client of SITA PSS. However, the incident did impact some AAdvantage loyalty data as some of our airline partners store loyalty data in SITA PSS. We exchange a limited set of frequent flyer loyalty data with our airline partners to ensure the loyalty status of our AAdvantage members are recognized during their travels.
At the end of the line
A data breach at the aviation IT company SITA potentially means that the details of the frequent flyers of millions of travelers have been compromised. The good news is that it seems to be mostly very basic details that may have been compromised, and a lot of it about payment methods, passwords, etc.
However, if you have received notice of the violation, it may be a good idea to change your account password.
Have you been affected by this SITA data breach?
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