Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Breached American Airlines Email Accounts Abused for Phishing

American Airlines discovered it was breached after receiving reports of employee email accounts being used in phishing attacks.

Last week, the airline started informing some of its customers that their personal data was likely compromised in a data breach identified in early July.

American Airlines discovered it was breached after receiving reports of employee email accounts being used in phishing attacks.

Last week, the airline started informing some of its customers that their personal data was likely compromised in a data breach identified in early July.

As part of the incident, unknown threat actors compromised the email accounts of multiple American Airlines employees, which allowed them to access customer data in those accounts, the company said in the notification letters sent to the impacted customers.

In a notification letter sample filed with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, the airline also disclosed the fact that the data breach was not discovered until after it received complaints of phishing emails being sent from its employee email accounts.

According to the company, the attackers might have also used the compromised accounts to access files stored on an employee SharePoint site.

American Airlines also notes that the attackers accessed the compromised mailboxes using the IMAP protocol, which could have allowed them to sync the contents of those mailboxes to another device.

“American has no reason to believe that syncing the contents of the mailboxes was the purpose of the access. Based on the facts, it appears the unauthorized actor was using IMAP protocol as means to access the mailboxes and send phishing emails,” the notification letter reads.

The airline told US authorities that the breach has impacted roughly 1,700 customers and employees.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

The company notes that “the number of documents that contained personal information was small and it would have taken the unauthorized actor significant time and resources to locate the personal information on the mailboxes.”

Related: American Airlines Says Personal Data Exposed After Email Phishing Attack

Related: Data Breach at Australian Telecoms Firm Optus Could Impact Up to 10 Million Customers

Related: New York Emergency Services Provider Says Patient Data Stolen in Ransomware Attack

Related: LastPass Found No Code Injection Attempts Following August Data Breach

Written By

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join this event as we dive into threat hunting tools and frameworks, and explore value of threat intelligence data in the defender’s security stack.

Register

Learn how integrating BAS and Automated Penetration Testing empowers security teams to quickly identify and validate threats, enabling prompt response and remediation.

Register

People on the Move

PAM provider Keeper Security has appointed Shane Barney as its Chief Information Security Officer.

SpecterOps has appointed Tim Bender as CFO, Pat Sheridan as CRO, and Bryce Hein as CMO.

CISA has officially announced the appointment of Madhu Gottumukkala as its new deputy director.

More People On The Move

Expert Insights

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest cybersecurity news, threats, and expert insights. Unsubscribe at any time.