The chief executive of British Airways has promised to compensate customers who have had their data stolen in what he described as a sophisticated breach of the company’s security systems.
Álex Cruz apologised after it was revealed that about 380,000 payment cards had been compromised after a theft of data from the BA website and app over a two-week period.
“We will work with any customer affected and we will compensate any financial hardship suffered,” Cruz said on the BBC 4 Today programme.
It came as news emerged that shares in the owner of BA, IAG, fell nearly 3% on Friday morning as investors weighed the impact of the hack on ticket sales.
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The breach took place between 22:58 BST on 21 August and 21:45 BST on 5 September. The airline said personal and financial details of customers making bookings had been compromised.
Cruz said the attack had not been a breach of encryption but was “sophisticated” efforts by criminals. He would not go into much detail about the nature of what happened as the police were investigating. “The first thing to say is that I am extremely sorry for what happened,” Cruz said.
The data theft, one of the most serious to hit a UK company, deals another blow to BA’s reputation. The airline experienced an IT disaster last year when a power surge in its control centre near Heathrow caused a global flight interruption and left tens of thousands of passengers stranded, most notably at the London airports.
Amid falling shares, Cruz remained resilient, and said the company was operating profitably and would expand its services and customer care. “We will get through this,” he said.
He said BA had a network of partners that monitored websites around the world. The cyber-attack was discovered on 5 September, when a partner alerted the airline, which launched an investigation. “The moment that actual customer data had been compromised, that’s when we began immediate communication to our customers,” Cruz said.
The airline has taken out adverts in Friday’s newspapers apologising for the breach.
The Information Commissioner’s Office is investigating the breach and the airline could potentially be fined.
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