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Over 10,000 aircraft operators and more than 13 million users could have had their personal details and passwords inadvertently exposed.
Users of the popular flight tracking application FlightAware received an unwelcome surprise in their email inboxes on 17 August, when the company sent out notice that it had experienced a “data security incident”.
The email – attributed to FlightAware’s general manager, Matt Davis – warns its recipients that the incident may have exposed a swathe of personal information and that users will be prompted to reset their passwords the next time they log on.
“On July 25, 2024, we discovered a configuration error that may have inadvertently exposed your personal information in your FlightAware account, including user ID, password, and email address,” Davis said.
“Depending on the information you provided, the information may also have included your full name, billing address, shipping address, IP address, social media accounts, telephone numbers, year of birth, last four digits of your credit card number, information about aircraft owned, industry, title, pilot status (yes/no), and your account activity (such as flights viewed and comments posted).”
Davis added that the configuration error has been addressed and that “this notification was not delayed as a result of a law enforcement investigation”.
It’s worth noting that FlightAware has not said a malicious actor accessed the data. Nor has the company revealed exactly how long the data had been exposed for.
Certainly, no threat actor has claimed to have access to any FlightAware data at the time of writing.
According to FlightAware’s website, the application “provides over 10,000 aircraft operators and service providers as well as over 13,000,000 passengers with global flight tracking solutions, predictive technology, analytics, and decision-making tools”.
Cyber Daily has reached out to FlightAware for further comment.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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