Security firm reveals group behind British Airways data breach

The hacking group behind the theft of 380,000 customers’ details from BA has been linked to a similar heist from Ticketmaster.

Threat researcher Yonathan Klijnsma of cyber security firm RiskIQ has identified the hackers as the Magecart group, which often uses forms in websites to insert code that will steal customers’ bank card details.

Last week, British Airways admitted that the credit card information of at least 380,000 customers had been compromised by hackers.

Read also: Hackers compromise British Airways account, steal thousands of credit card info

Ticketmaster announced that 40,000 customers in the UK had their personal information and banking card details stolen in June.

According to Mr Klijnsma, there is significant evidence that these cyber heists were conducted by the same criminal hacking group which RiskIQ calls Magecart, and which it says has been active since 2015.

In the physical world, card skimmers can be covertly placed into ATMs where they capture the card’s details as it is placed into the machine, and increasingly digital card skimmers are being injected into websites.

Fabien Libeau, RiskIQ’s vice president for EMEA, told Sky News the firm was confident that the Magecart group was behind the BA hack – and added that he himself had been one of the victims.

 

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