Holidaymakers’ details at risk afterAbta hack

A CYBER attack on travel trade association Abta’s website put data records of around 43,000 people at risk of being accessed.

The organisation said around 1,000 of these files may include “personal identity information” of consumers who had complained about a holiday. The attack happened on February 27.

Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer said he would “personally like to apologise for the concern caused”.

He added: “It is extremely disappointing that our web server, managed for Abta through a third party company, was compromised, and we are taking every step to help those affected. I will personally be working with the team to look at what we can learn from this situation.”

Mr Tanzer said he was “not aware of any information being shared beyond the infiltrator”. Abta is the UK’s largest travel association – consumers who book a holiday with an Abta member are protected financially if the company goes bust.

The hacker exploited a “system vulnerability” with the abta.com web server to “access some data” provided by holidaymakers and travel firms, Abta said. The association “immediately engaged security risk consultants” to assess the potential extent of the incident and informed the police and the Information Commissioner.

Abta said the “vast majority” of the 43,000 data records at risk relate to people who had registered on abta. com with email addresses, passwords, and “basic contact details”.

There is a “very low exposure risk to identity theft or online fraud” for these people, the company said.

It advised agents to change passwords and called on people who had uploaded personal documents to “actively monitor” their bank accounts.