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Another technical crisis hits British Airways. This time, hackers stole credit card information from 380,000 customers.
The company said the data thieves removed the names, addresses, emails and credit card details, including the card number, the expiration date and the security code of travelers who booked flights to the site British Airways Web between August 21st and September 5th. the passport or the details of the trip have been taken.
"There was a Malicious and highly sophisticated criminal attack on our website, "said CEO Alex Cruz in an interview with BBC Radio. According to him, this is the worst violation since British Airways launched its website 20 years ago.
British Airways said the customers concerned should contact their banks. The company said it would pay a credit check for customers and promised to pay them back in the event of a loss.
"We are deeply sorry for the disruption that this criminal activity has caused," the company said in a statement. He also pulled out ads in full-page newspapers that included an apology.
The company announced that it had started notifying its customers Thursday, a day after the discovery of the violation. Shares of British Airways owner International Airlines Group (BABWF) fell 3.5% on Friday.
The hacking comes a little over a year after a power outage forced the company to cancel about 700 flights from London's largest airport in May 2017. About 75,000 passengers were affected.
The airline reported in its annual report that the incident resulted in a charge of £ 56 million ($ 72.6 million). Sales also suffered during the outage, but the company did not quantify the lost business.
The site hacked into customer complaints on Friday as some victims said they had heard about the violation by the media and not by British Airways. Others said they received blank e-mails from the airline.
A victim, Esme Karim, said that she received an e-mail at around 1 am, informing her that her personal details had been compromised.
"How can they only discover yesterday that this is happening? How ridiculous," Karim told CNN. "I immediately blocked my card, went to the bank and said that it was ridiculous that BA allowed this to happen."
– Gianluca Mezzofiore and Samantha Tapfumaneyi contributed to this report.
CNNMoney (London) First published on September 7, 2018: 5:03 ET
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