As holiday season is fast approaching, more and more of us start looking at booking our summer getaway or family break and as ever it becomes even more imperative to remain savvy when spending online. Last week the travel association, ABTA made the news over a cyber-attack that put an estimated 43,000 customers at risk. On the 27th of February the company and its third party associations became the latest to have its online security compromised by unauthorised users, putting customer’s data at risk, the organisations web server is managed through a third party and it is believed that it was exploited due to this vulnerability.
It is reported that around 1000 files that were accessed during the attack, including personal identities and information of individuals whom have made complaints about ABTA registered travel agents. ABTA have also since reported that the “vast majority” of the 43,000 people that were affected were those who had registered with email address and encrypted passwords, or those that has filled in an online contact form with basic details.
Despite this, ABTA are confident that the stolen information has not gone any further than the infiltrator, adding that there was “a very low exposure risk to identity theft or online fraud” with this type of data. Mark Tanzer, CEO of ABTA continued to say, “We are not aware of any information being shared beyond the infiltrator. We are actively monitoring the situation, but as a precautionary measure we are taking steps to warn both customers of ABTA Members and ABTA Members who have the potential to be affected.”
For any further advice or information as to how best to protect your business against cyber-crime, do not hesitate getting in contact with our knowledgeable team here at borwell on 01684377980