A public notice issued by the Information commissioner office (ICO) stated that British Airways may be fined 183 million pounds for the data breach that occurred last year. The hackers managed to get away with personal information belonging to 500,000 customers.
The ICO Will Not Let This Go Unnoticed
The hackers conducted a sophisticated, malicious criminal attack on the British Airways website to divert the incoming traffic onto a fake and fraudulent website to harvest the customer’s personal information like email, credit card info and address. British Airways chief had apologized for the hack.
The credit cards’ three-digit CVV number may also have been taken, but British Airways denied this possibility by saying it does not store the CVV number of its customer’s cards, but some reports say otherwise as passport and information related to travel arrangement weren’t stolen.
According to the ICO, the breach occurred due to the sparse security arrangement the company had made. Since the breach, the company has been taking adequate steps to improve its security. Under the new, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced last year, the maximum penalty for data breach due to inadequate security has been raised to 4% of the yearly turnover. The fine the airways must pay accounts for only 1.5 percent of its annual earnings.
We Are Ready For Any Fight
The IAG the company that owns British Airways has 28 days to appeal before the ICO and resolve the issue. Willie Walsh, chief executive of IAG while talking to the media stated that they tended to make all necessary arrangements required to defend British airways vigourously and make all necessary appeals.
Alex Cruz, British Airways chairman, and chief executive stated that the airline was surprised and disappointed in the ICO’s initial finding. He further remarked that British Airways responded quickly to a criminal act of stealing customer’s data. They had found no evidence of fraud/fraudulent activity on accounts linked to the theft. They also apologized to customers for any inconvenience they faced.
