Did Delta’s Cyber Attack Expose Customer Information?

Delta Air Lines announced Wednesday its customers may have been impacted by a cyber attack last year that exposed payment information.

According to Reuters.com, the cyber attack was launched on chat-services provider (24)7.ai, which works with Delta and other companies. The attack from September 26 to October 12 exposed payment information from a small group of passengers, but Delta said no passport, security or frequent-flyer account information was impacted.

Officials at Delta were informed of the data breach last week by (24)7.ai, and the airline called on federal law enforcement and forensic teams to analyze the situation. The carrier said impacted customers will not be held responsible if their payment cards were used fraudulently.

The San Jose-based (24)7.ai also announced a “small number” of its client companies had their online customer payment information potentially exposed. The chat-services provider said its platform is now secure and is working with authorities to help impacted customers.

Delta released an official statement about the incident and is launching a dedicated webpage for customers who are concerned they were impacted by the cyber attack:

“We appreciate and understand that this information is concerning to our customers. The security and confidentiality of our customers’ information is of critical importance to us and a responsibility we take extremely seriously. Delta will launch delta.com/response, a dedicated website, noon ET April 5, which we will update regularly to address customer questions and concerns.”

“We will also directly contact customers who may have been impacted by the [24]7.ai cyber incident. In the event any of our customers’ payment cards were used fraudulently as a result of the [24]7.ai cyber incident, we will ensure our customers are not responsible for that activity.”