Qantas data breach hits over 5 million customers

Qantas Airways has confirmed that the personal information of 5.7 million customers was accessed in a major cyber breach, one of the most significant Australia has seen in recent years, according to a recent report by Reuters.

The airline revealed that among the affected customers, more than a million had sensitive details such as phone numbers, dates of birth, or home addresses exposed. An additional four million had only their names and email addresses compromised.

The breach was first disclosed last week. In an updated statement on Wednesday, Qantas said the figure had been revised after duplicate records were removed from the initial estimate of six million.

The company stressed there is no evidence that the stolen data has been leaked or misused, and that it is closely monitoring the situation.

"Since the incident, we have put in place a number of additional cyber security measures to further protect our customers' data, and are continuing to review what happened," said Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson, according to the Reuters report.

This incident marks the most high-profile cyber attack in Australia since the 2022 breaches at Optus and Medibank, which triggered reforms and stricter cyber resilience regulations across the country.