Japan Airlines warns of data breach as country grapples with multiple cyber incidents

What happened

Japan Airlines warns of data breach (an incident in which data leaves an organisation without permission) as country grapples with multiple cyber incidents, according to The Record. Hackers stole passport numbers, frequent flyer numbers, email addresses and phone numbers for about 2,000 customers. The company published a notice on Wednesday saying Amadeus IT Group, the company that runs its flight reservation, ticketing and check-in systems, informed the firm last week that hackers accessed a “portion of customer reservation data” for Japan Airlines and Japan Transocean Air flights.

In total, 92,000 customers were impacted, with hackers accessing names, reservation codes and flight information. For about 2,000 Japan Airlines customers, the hackers stole passport numbers, frequent flyer numbers, email addresses and phone numbers.

Japan Airlines said the breach never impacted flight operations and credit card numbers were not compromised. The data breach follows multiple high-profile data breaches impacting Japanese companies over the last two weeks.

On Tuesday, an internet service provider owned by Sony Network Communications said more than 2.5 million people had information stolen during a data breach earlier this month. Eleven million people had data stolen in a cyberattack on Burger King Japan and another 11.7 million were affected by a breach involving gaming company Capcom.

A large Japanese online financial services company offered to compensate customers after a recent cyberattack on its foreign exchange trading service led to customer financial losses. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi held a cabinet meeting on Monday centered on the cyberattacks, vowing to release a package of emergency measures to better protect Japanese companies and citizens from cyberattacks. The news outlet reported that Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi met with U.S.