Update: American Airlines subsequently denied having been attacked. SCMagazine reports:
“There is no indication or evidence of an attack or that any customer data has been compromised,” said American spokesman Casey Norton, adding that, “Because of a threat to a close partner that we work closely with on reservations we are looking closely at our own security efforts.”
Original story follows:
Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley report:
A group of China-linked hackers that has mowed through the databanks of major American health insurers and stolen personnel records of U.S. military and intelligence agencies has struck at the heart of the nation’s air-travel system, say people familiar with investigations of the attacks.
Sabre Corp., which processes reservations for hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels, confirmed that its systems were breached recently, while American Airlines Group Inc., the world’s biggest carrier, said it is investigating whether hackers had entered its computers.
Read more on Bloomberg. There’s no press release from Sabre up on their site at this time, and it’s not yet clear whether the attack involved traveller’s personal information or not.
And yes, putting such information together with information from the OPM hack makes that hack scarier and scarier.