The UK's three major airports Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands have been hit by a cyber-attack. Hackers accessed the personal data of about 8.7 million customers, The Guardian reported.
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Manchester Airports Group (MAG), which operates all three airports, said the compromised information included customers’ email addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registration numbers and postcodes. The affected data was linked to car park, lounge and fast-track bookings, as well as in-airport Wi-Fi sign-ups.
MAG said the incident did not affect passenger safety or aviation security and caused no disruption to airport operations. It also said the affected system did not contain customers’ bank or payment details.
The company said the incident occurred over the weekend and that it had “immediately contained the risk”. MAG is working with specialist advisers and taking steps to protect its systems and customer information.
“We have informed and are working with the relevant authorities,” a MAG spokesperson said on Thursday. “At no point has passenger safety or aviation security been compromised.”
The spokesperson said the incident had “not resulted in any operational disruption”, adding that airport operations remained unaffected and customer parking services continued to operate normally.
MAG also apologised to customers for any concern caused by the incident and said it takes the security of customer information “extremely seriously”.
London Stansted separately warned customers to be alert to possible follow-up attempts by scammers using the stolen information.
In an email to customers, the airport urged them to be particularly cautious of unexpected emails, phone calls or text messages claiming to be from the airport.
“We will never contact you unexpectedly to ask for payment or banking information,” the email said.
