UK’s ICO Fines Cathay Pacific £500,000 for 2018 Breach
The UK’s data protection watchdog has issued the maximum possible fine to Cathay Pacific in response to a major breach at the Asian airline which resulted in the compromise of millions of customers’ data.
The £500,000 penalty from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) comes under the old Data Protection Act 1998, which was superseded by the GDPR, and its UK version the Data Protection Act 2018.
Over 111,000 of the Hong Kong airline’s 9.5 million global passengers were from the UK. The ICO judged that between October 2014 and May 2018 insufficient security measures were put in place, enabling hackers to compromise an internet-connected server and install data harvesting malware in the 2018 breach.
Specifically, it called out a “catalog of errors” including: back-up files that weren’t password protected unpatched internet-facing servers, inadequate AV and use of unsupported operating systems.
“People rightly expect when they provide their personal details to a company, that those details will be kept secure to ensure they are protected from any potential harm or fraud. That simply was not the case here,” said ICO director of investigations, Steve Eckersley.
“This breach was particularly concerning given the number of basic security inadequacies across Cathay Pacific’s system, which gave easy access to the hackers. The multiple serious deficiencies we found fell well below the standard expected. At its most basic, the airline failed to satisfy four out of five of the National Cyber Security Centre’s basic Cyber Essentials guidance.”
The size of the UK fine also shines a light on the inadequacies of Hong Kong’s domestic data protection regime.
It took Cathay Pacific seven months to report the incident, although it was under no legal obligation to do so at all. The privacy commissioner was also powerless to levy fines. The only option was an enforcement notice citing violation of privacy laws and an order that the firm improved its cybersecurity posture.
Even if the airline had failed to comply with the order, it would only have faced a fine of HK $50,000 ($6433).
The Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China is looking to update its privacy laws in line with the GDPR, to include major fines levied in the future as a percentage of global turnover.
source infosecuritymagazine
Industry: Cyber Security
Latest Jobs
-
- 6 month contract Operational Cyber Security - SIEM, Vulnerability, Cyber Essentials + London, Inside IR35
- City of London
- Depending on experience
-
6 month contract inside IR35 Operational Cyber Security London c50% of the role is day to day operations / administration / liaising with 3rd party monitoring suppliers. More though investigations, getting ready for cyber essentials plus. Following up on vulnerability management. 20-30% active monitoring of alerts, tooling etc. 10% reporting / light oversight of junior Experience with Microsoft defender / Azure, Splunk, Tenable Experience in maintaining Cyber Essentials Plus is a big bonus. Knowledge across ISO27001, NIST GDPR required. Inside ir35 need someone in their London (city) office 2-3 days a week.
-
- CONTRACT Fluent French AND English Cyber Security Project manager - 12 month
- United Kingdom
- Dependent on experience
-
Fluent French / English Contactor cyber Security Project Manager needed. Experience in migrating technical cyber services from one physical region to another. Experience with Crowdstrike, Tanium, Palo Alto and or Zscaler ideal or comparable solutions. Language fluency in French AND English is essential. 12 month contract. Looking to start June. Day rate dependent on Experience. Apply today for more details
-
- GRC Security Contractor - Achieve SOC2 Type 1 Compliance - 6 month
- London
- Dependent on experience
-
GRC security practitioner needed to ensure a financial service business to achieve SOC 2 type 1. Experience managing the end to end process is key, you will be the key individual to deliver this within a 6 month deadline. Experience of SOC 2 type 1 / type 2. The gathering of evidence, baseline of 27001, ukdpa, GDPR NIST etc. Looking to interview ASAP.
-
- Contact 12 month- Security Operations- Crowdstrike Falcon Insight EDR / Analyst.
- United Kingdom
- Dependent on experience
-
Security Operations engineer / Analyst with Crowdstrike Falcon Insight EDR experience for a 12 month contract. Experienced Contractor with Crowdstrike Falcon Insight: Endpoint detection and Response (EDR) experience needed - 12 month rolling project. Implementation, configuration and Analyst experience needed with Crowdstrike Falcon Insight: (EDR) Migration project- relocating capability internationally. technically implementing, configuration of that that migration and then transition to BAU role monitoring. DCL Search exclusive associate Project.