Thousands Of US Airways Pilots Victims Of Possible Insider Data Breach

[security curmudgeon <jericho () attrition org>]

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From: InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>

http://www.darkreading.com/database-security/167901020/security/attacks-breaches/229401204/thousands-of-us-airways-pilots-victims-of-possible-insider-data-breach.html

By Kelly Jackson Higgins
Darkreading
Apr 07, 2011

The US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA) said it has been working with 
the FBI for several months in the wake of a leak of personal information 
of 3,000 of the airline union's pilots.

A spokesman for US Airways today declined to comment on specifics of the 
case, but confirmed that some two-thirds of the airline's pilots -- 3,000 
of its employees -- were affected by the breach. "We take any claim of the 
breach of sensitive data very seriously," the spokesman said. US Airways 
is offering 12 months of LifeLock's identity theft watch services to the 
pilots, he said.

The USAPA, a union that represents 5,200 US Airways pilots, yesterday 
publicly expressed its frustration with the airline's handling of the 
case. The USAPA said the airline recently revealed that a management-level 
pilot leaked a database of US Airways pilot names, addresses, Social 
Security numbers, and possibly passport information to a third-party pilot 
group.

A former chief pilot at the airline reportedly handed over the information 
in an Excel document in October 2009 to the group, called Leonidas, which 
represents pilots from what was once America West, now part of US Airways, 
according to a published report. The leak appears to be associated with a 
long-running labor dispute and bad blood between former America West 
pilots and their counterparts at US Airways. Leonidas did not respond to 
requests for an interview.

[...]
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