Air India Cyber-Attack

Air India has recently announced that, ten years’ worth of Air India customer data such as credit cards, passports and phone numbers were leaked in a cyber-attack on its data processor in February 2021. Cyber-attack has affected about 45 lakh customers who got registered between August 26, 2011 to February 3, 2021.

Highlights

Cyber-attack has also compromised names, date of birth, contact information and ticket information of the customers. This was a ‘highly sophisticated’ attack which targeted Geneva-based passenger system operator called SITA. SITA served the Air India apart from Star Alliance of airlines including Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa.

What is cyber-attack?

Cyber-attack is an online attack, launched by cybercriminals using one or more computers against single or multiple computers or networks and other such information systems. It maliciously disables computers and steal data. It also uses a breached computer as a launch point for other such attacks. Methods like malware, ransomware, phishing, denial of service are used to attack the computers or networks.

Cyber-Attack in India

Frequent causes of cyber-attacks include- Spear Phishing, Phishing and Social Engineering, Malware, Out of Date Software, Denial of Service and Ransomware. Most recent attack was witnessed by Microsoft which reported that, cyber crooks are using Covid-19 situation in 2020 to defraud people using the methods of phishing and ransomware in India and other countries.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2021