UK airports cyberattack: How to check if your details were stolen
UK airport hackers access data of 8.7m people in major cyberattack
Manchester Airport Group has been hit with a massive cyber security breach, leading to stealing data of over 8 million people.
Among all the airports, Manchester Airport, London Stansted and East Midlands Airport were reported to be highly impacted.
The exposed or hacked information primarily consisted of customer email addresses from terminal WIFI registrations along with phone numbers, vehicle registration numbers and postcodes associated with airport booking.
However, Manchester Airport Group has assured the public no sensitive information related to finances, payments or banking had been hacked, leading to uncompromised aviation safety.
In an email to customers, the airport said, "Our investigation has identified that some of your personal information relating to airport car parking, lounge, Fast Track bookings and on-airport WIFI sign-ups has been accessed by an unauthorised third party."
Recently, the airport has been investigating a cyber breach but if you have concerns of stealing your information you can check by using this method.
Affected individuals can check if their email has appeared in leaked databases by using verification services such as haveibeenpwned.com.
By using this, you can check your email in seconds against any released stolen databases and identify if your name and email appear somewhere.
If you come to know that your data has been breached, you can still minimize the impact by following these steps:
First, you are being advised to change passwords on accounts where information may have been breached. Use a password manager to create unique and strong passwords.
Beverley Griffiths, senior lecturer in security and resilience at Bucks New University, said customers should remain vigilant after a "cyber security incident" as they could be exploited in a targeted phishing, social engineering and fraudulent attempts through unexpected emails, phone calls and texts.
“While email addresses, phone numbers, postcodes and vehicle registration details may appear less sensitive than financial data, large volumes of this information can be highly valuable to cyber criminals,” she added.
Always verify any requests for personal information through official channels. MAG has confirmed it will never unexpectedly ask for payment or banking information.
