Cathay Pacific 2018 Data Breach Case

CATHAY PACIFIC 2018 DATA BREACH CASE

Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Company background............................................................................................................3
3. Background of the issue.........................................................................................................4
4. Reason of data breach, type of data breach and defense method...........................................5
5. Gap in the current defense method.........................................................................................8
6. Lack of security....................................................................................................................12
7. Conclusion............................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................15

1. Introduction
Protecting information of customers is an important duty of organizations as it is
related to the trust of customers on that company. It is important to ensure the integrity and
security of database for protecting personal information of customers including, name,
address, phone number, and other personal details. Breaching of this data may allow
criminals to harm consumers. This study is focusing on analyzing the Cathay Pacific 2018
data breach case study. In this case study, it can be seen that personal information of
customers of Cathay Pacific has been breached. This incident has taken place as a result of
three attacks by hackers. This paper is discussing gaps in the security system of this Airline
Company. Existing defense system of this company has failed to protect information and
particular reason behind this failure is being analyzed in this study.
2. Company background
Cathay Pacific is an international carrier firm that is also known as Cathay Pacific
airways limited. This firm has been incorporated in 1946 on 24th September. Head office of
this airlines firm is located in Hong Kong international airport. It has other subsidiaries like
Cathay dragon and air Hong Kong. In the year 2018, this firm has gained HK$ 111.6 billion
as revenue. Fleet size of this company is 202 and it provides services to 77 destinations. It has
around 32400 employees in this firm and all subsidiaries (Cathay Pacific). Cathay Pacific has
a comprehensive global network of line maintenance support at different locations. Main aim
of their business is to continuously improve their products and services and gain competitive
advantage in the market. Cathay airlines will increase its fleet size by 71 up to 2024. They
provide different services to their customers that include airlines, handling of cargo, catering
services in flight. Moreover, they provide ground services and laundries. They also provide
airline services to around 200 destinations that include different regions of Asia, Europe, and
Africa. They are aiming to expand their fleet size by acquiring fuel-efficient aircraft and also
trying to improve aircraft engineering business in future. Cathay Pacific is one of the founder
members of the OneWorld alliance that contains other members like British airways, Japan
airlines.
This firm has earned millions of customers by providing a wide range of efficient
support and varied products. However, recent incident of data breach has impacted the brand
image of the company that impacted about 9 million customers of this company. This firm

provides passengers all support by providing essential information like the departure time of
the aircraft. Hence, collection of personal details like contact is important for providing
prompt support to customers in a proper way.
3. Background of the issue
Data breach in Cathay specific can be considered as the largest case of breaching data
and this case has taken place in 2018. This company is holding well-designed IT structure
and employees of IT department of this airline company provide their best effort to protect
information of their customers. However, hackers have attacked several times and have
caused breaching of data impacting on approximately 9.4 million passengers. Solove (737)
has mentioned that protecting personal information of consumers is a primary responsibility
of a company and organizations are bound by legal system to provide their best effort to
avoid breaching of data. Several consequences are associated with the issue of data breach.
Breach of data due to negligence of a company negatively impacts its customer base.
Customers rely on organization and provide their personal information for purchasing
products or services. For example, customers of Cathay Pacific provide personal information
such as their name, contact details, passport details, and credit card and ID card details to this
company while booking flights. However, the incident of data breach has given access to this
information to unauthorized persons.
This company has not released the information regarding this mishap for seven
months for protecting their reputation. However, the Hong Kong privacy Watchdog has
investigated this case and they have produced a report on this matter. This kind of incidents
result from lax attitude of organizations and it affects the lives of consumers (Manworren et
al. 258). As a result, consumers switch this kind of company and certain break down in
economy of company takes place. In this case, the report generated by the watchdog has
mentioned that restructuring of IT system can be considered as one of the main reasons
behind occurrence of this issue of data breach. However, the management of this company
has denied this fact by saying that they have provided their best effort to ensure perfect
restructuring of IT system. According to Ablon et al. (125), it is important to improve IT
system of a company on a regular basis without harming existing system. The case of data
breach in Cathay Pacific is postulating that it may be possible that they have made mistakes
during the restructuring of IT system and hackers have got the chance of attacking database
of this company. Data breaching is one of the major concerns of this time as it has a long-