Commercial aircraft manufacturer Airbus announced a data breach incident that impacted the company's “Commercial Aircraft business” information systems and led to third parties gaining unauthorized access to data.

Airbus is a global leader in aeronautics funded in 1970, headquartered in the European Union and currently employing more than 10,000 people.

According to Airbus' press release, the cybersecurity incident did not affect its commercial operations and the personal data which was accessed belongs to European employees.

Airbus stated that:

Investigations are ongoing to understand if any specific data was targeted, however we do know some personal data was accessed. This is mostly professional contact and IT identification details of some Airbus employees in Europe. 

After detecting the security breach incident, Airbus started an investigation to pinpoint the causes behind the cyber incident and to put in place countermeasures designed to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

The official statement says:

This incident is being thoroughly investigated by Airbus’ experts who have taken immediate and appropriate actions to reinforce existing security measures and to mitigate its potential impact, as well as determining its origins.   

Airbus also said that it is currently in contact with "the relevant regulatory authorities and the data protection authorities pursuant to the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)."

Additionally, all employees have been advised to take all possible precautions to make sure that their data will not be exposed in the event of a future Airbus data breach incident.

BleepingComputer contacted Airbus asking for more details but did not receive an answer prior to publication. We will update whenever that changes.

Two weeks ago, potential attackers could view and change private information in flight bookings made by millions of customers of 140 major international airlines because of a security issue in the Amadeus online booking system.

Also, back in October 2018, the Cathay Pacific airline announced that one IT system containing passenger data for up to 9.4 million passengers was breached by attackers who accessed customers' phone numbers, emails, addresses, passport numbers, more.

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