Chinese hackers have reportedly attacked the computer systems ofAmerican Airlines and travel reservations platform provider Sabre, said people familiar with the investigation.
Sabre Corp., which processes reservations for hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels, confirmed its systems were breached recently, and American Airlines Group Inc,. the world’s biggest air carrier, said it is investigating whether hackers had entered its computers,Bloombergreported Friday.
Sources believe both companies were hacked as part of the same wave of attacks that targeted health insurer Anthem Inc. and the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
The latest incidents are the largest breach yet on the U.S. travel industry and come on the heels of another attack, attributed to the same group, on United Airlines.
The stolen information could be combined with background data the hackers gained on millions of government employees and contractors in the OPM hack as well as medical histories gained in the Anthem breach.
A foreign government could use the data to build profiles of U.S. officials, tracking their travel and establishing information that could be used to blackmail them. They could also use the information to detect military intelligence operations, Bloomberg reported.
However, American Airlines spokesman Casey Norton said the company has found no evidence that customer data might have been compromised.
American Airlines “has worked with outside cybersecurity experts who checked digital signatures, IP addresses and the style of attack, and there’s no evidence to suggest a breach similar to that experienced by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management,” he said in an email to Reuters.
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