Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Chinese hackers behind OPM megabreach also pwned United Airlines

Possibility of Beijing-sponsored triple hack makes industry sit-up, gulp, take notice

United Airlines was hacked by same Chinese group that also breached health insurer Anthem and the US government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Hackers stole flight manifests from United Airlines in May or early June, exposing the names of people on many different flights in the process, after earlier making off with up to 21.5 million Social Security Numbers from the OPM heist. Bloomberg broke news of the possible link on Wednesday in a story citing unnamed officials and individuals familiar with the investigation.

United declined to comment on the breach investigation. Zhu Haiquan, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, issued a blanket denial that China engages in hacking. “The Chinese government and the personnel in its institutions never engage in any form of cyberattack. We firmly oppose and combat any forms of cyberattacks,” he said.

The report of links between the three high-profile attacks is light on details (most notably the tactics and techniques used to breach systems), but the implications run deep. Some independent experts even characterise the linked hacks as a potential game-changer in online espionage.

Ken Westin, senior security analyst at Tripwire, said that the run of attacks seems to show that state-sponsored hackers are upping the ante and going after a range of related targets in one fell swoop.

“If the evidence does reveal nexus points and attribution to a group, particularly a nation state, it would also reveal the disturbing motivation of the attackers,” Westin commented. “Instead of a campaign to breach a single entity, the goal was to compromise multiple disparate sets of data for the purposes of correlation. This correlation would allow the actors to develop targeted profiles of individuals in the United States, particularly those with security clearances, leading to one of the most devastating intelligence compromises we have seen to date.”

“Identifying individuals with security clearances and linking that data to travel information is one example of how the combination of this type of data can be exponentially more damaging than individual data sets alone,” he added. ®

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like