Amadeus - Stolen Credentials, Three Years of Airline Reservations, and the Passengers Who Never Dealt With Amadeus

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G'day and welcome to Tech Talks with Kinsoft. Today we look at the Amadeus incident, in which unauthorised access to the travel technology provider's reservation systems exposed passenger records from several airlines.

Japan Airlines says around 92,000 customers are involved. All Nippon Airways says about 37,800 customers who booked between 10 August 2023 and 23 September 2026 may have been affected. Cathay Pacific reports about 53,000 bookings. Korean Air, Asiana Airlines and Condor also reported exposed information. Most records involve names, booking codes and flight details; a smaller group, around 2,000 at JAL and 1,700 at ANA, also had items such as passport numbers and contact details. The airlines say credit card details were not involved.

Korean Air and Asiana say the investigation points to unauthorised use of access credentials tied to an Amadeus system account. ANA says Amadeus detected the access on 24 September but did not tell ANA at that time. How the credentials were obtained has not been disclosed, and no attacker has been named.

We walk through the timeline, what was and was not exposed, and the lessons for any organisation that depends on a supplier holding its customers' data.

Visit www.kinsoft.com.au to talk through your security and IT needs.

Sources: Japan Airlines and ANA statements via TRAICY; Korean Air notice; The Korea Times; Escudo Digital; Bloomberg via The Star; eSecurity Planet.