A group of hackers claims to have broken into the TAP airline’s system and stolen information, including personal and payment data, from thousands of customers. The Portuguese company operates in 11 Brazilian capitals and is one of the main routes connecting Brazil with Europe.
TAP responded to the group’s allegation with an ambiguous note, in which it neither confirms nor denies the theft of sensitive information. Last week, the company announced that it had been the victim of a cyberattack, but assured that there was no evidence of data compromise.
“Allegations are being made public today by an organized computer crime group that customer data had been stolen. TAP continues to adopt, with the support of an external international entity and in conjunction with the authorities, all measures to contain and appropriate remediation to protect the company and its customers,” the company said in a statement.
So far, independent security experts have not confirmed the attack. In many cases, criminal groups make grandiose claims to try to pressure companies into paying a ransom.
The announcement of the company’s alleged mega leak was made by the Ragnar Locker group, on a deep web page. Hackers accuse TAP of having lied about the seriousness of last week’s attack.
The group claims the data compromise has now amounted to “hundreds of gigabytes”, which is greater than what occurred in the EasyJet airline system hack in 2020.
“For leaking the personal information of ‘only’ 400,000 customers, EasyJet faces legal action worth £180 million for having lost this data,” say the hackers, who ironically suggest that TAP hire good lawyers.
The group says it will publish new information soon. Meanwhile, to show what the potential content of the data obtained would be, they published a screenshot with a list of names and other personal information of alleged customers.
Ragnar Locker has been active since 2019, having carried out offensives against large companies such as EDP, also Portuguese, and Dassault Falcon.
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