Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has confirmed that a large-scale data breach has seen around the personal records of passengers have been stolen by an 'unauthorised third party'.
The group controls Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports in the UK.
"A quantity of customer data has been obtained that relates to car park, lounge and Fast Track bookings and in-airport WIFI sign-ups at Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports," a spokesperson for the company confirmed in a statement.
“We immediately contained the risk and have been working with specialist advisors and taking appropriate steps to protect our customers and systems. We have informed and are working with the relevant authorities. At no point has passenger safety or aviation security been compromised.”
A BBC report suggested that around 8.7 million passenger records were compromised and that the hackers had demanded a ransom from MAG.
The airports group reiterated that the incident has 'not resulted in any operational disruption'. Airport operations remain unaffected and customer parking services continue to operate normally.
It also confirmed that neither MAG nor the system accessed hold customers’ bank or payment details. The data that has been accessed includes customers’ email addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registrations and postcodes.
Both Manchester and Stansted handle around 30m passengers per year each, while East Midlands had around four million passengers last year.
"We would like to reassure customers that Manchester Airport Group takes the security of customer information extremely seriously and we apologise for any inconvenience or concern caused.”
