{"id":209895,"date":"2025-10-13T09:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T09:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/209895\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T09:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T09:53:08","slug":"frustration-mounts-among-qantas-customers-as-personal-data-released-on-dark-web","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/209895\/","title":{"rendered":"Frustration mounts among Qantas customers as personal data released on dark web"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frustration is mounting among Qantas customers after they were made aware that their names and addresses are up for grabs on the dark web.<\/p>\n

The stolen data of 5.7 million customers was released over the weekend<\/a> after cybercrime collective Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters did not receive the ransom<\/a> it demanded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ebe Ganon is one of the airline customers who was caught up in the cyber incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ebe Ganon says she is disappointed but not surprised about Qantas’s data being leaked.\u00a0 (ABC News: Rhiana Whitson)<\/p>\n

“I still haven’t had any communication directly from Qantas about what’s happened, and that’s really frustrating as someone who often doesn’t have a lot of choice,” she told the ABC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“At this point, my only options are really to pay for monthly identity monitoring myself, and that in itself is costly; it’s also quite anxiety-provoking.<\/p>\n

“It creates yet another mess that individuals have to clean up because corporates aren’t doing their job properly.”<\/p>\n

Ms Ganon also accused Qantas of poor communication with its customers.<\/p>\n

\"Travellers<\/p>\n

Customers affected by the Qantas data hack say the airline has failed to support them.\u00a0 (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)<\/p>\n

“Every single time there’s been a development in this story, I’ve heard it from the media,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And as of this morning, I still haven’t had any communication directly from Qantas about what’s happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And that’s really frustrating as someone who often doesn’t have a lot of choice around the provider that I use when I travel.”<\/p>\n

Qantas customers’ records were exposed in July after cyber criminals tricked a Qantas call centre worker in the Philippines into handing over access to the information on the third-party platform Salesforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There has been speculation that Qantas may face severe financial penalties over the data breach under the Australian Privacy Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner would not comment on whether Qantas would be fined over the hack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Has your Qantas data hit the dark web?<\/a><\/p>\n

Hackers have released Qantas customer data onto the dark web. Here’s what experts say to look out for and what actions you can take.<\/p>\n

Experts say that with the airline recently reporting a $1.6 billion full-year profit, the size of any penalty must be big enough to teach Qantas and other companies a lesson.<\/p>\n

“The key lesson is to prioritise security over trying to maximise profits for shareholders,” Matt Warren, the director at the Centre of Cyber Security from RMIT University, told ABC News.<\/p>\n

“The onus is on Qantas, and the onus is on Qantas to keep all of their customers updated.”<\/p>\n

Dr Warren said the case against the airline could be complex if it tried to blame Salesforce or claimed Australian laws did not apply.<\/p>\n

Michael Park, a lawyer who specialises in technology, media, and telecommunications, said this did not appear to be clear at this stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

There is speculation that Qantas may face billions of dollars in fines for a data breach.\u00a0 (Reuters: Hollie Adams)<\/p>\n

“The threshold question will be whether Qantas has breached any of the Australian privacy principles under the privacy act,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“For example, if Qantas holds personal information, it must take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to protect that information from misuse, interference and loss.<\/p>\n

Government firm on not paying hackers<\/a><\/p>\n

The federal government is sticking to its position of not negotiating with cyber criminals, despite hackers releasing personal data from millions of Qantas customers onto the dark web.<\/p>\n

“The key question here will be whether Qantas held the customer data that was stolen, or whether Salesforce \u2014 or another third party \u2014 held the relevant customer data.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Park said it was unclear whether Qantas would be liable at all for any breach of the privacy law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Warren from RMIT added that the significance of the type of data breached by Qantas was big, adding that more scams would follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It is serious because it contains what is called personally identifiable information … like your name, your date of birth,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The problem is it’s hard to change your name, you can’t change your date of birth, so what the worry is that there will be a second wave of scams.”<\/p>\n

Scammers who have access to the data on the dark web might contact the affected Qantas customers, pretending to offer compensation to gain their bank details, Dr Warren warned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Qantas has not fronted the media since hackers followed through with the threat to post the data on the dark web.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to questions from the ABC, a spokesperson pointed to a statement on the airline’s website.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The airline spokesperson also said affected customers could access various types of support from IDCARE, which was offered to individual customers on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frustration is mounting among Qantas customers after they were made aware that their names and addresses are up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,12459,99,27014,108354,41523,2458,14279,3861,129368],"class_list":["post-209895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-breach","tag-business","tag-cyberattacks","tag-cybercriminals","tag-dark-web","tag-data","tag-data-breach","tag-qantas","tag-ransoms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}