British Airways Hack- Week 10

While any hack is undesirable, this week's hack could have turned out much worse.  British Airlines was hacked in March, 2015.  The hackers were able to gain information about members of British Airlines frequent fliers club.  The hackers did not gain access to any payment information, names, or addresses.

Again, while any hack is undesirable, let's take a moment to consider how this could have gone differently.  What if the hackers didn't gain access to just frequent flier numbers, but also got names and addresses.  This would potentially cause identity theft issues.  If the hackers got access to payment information, this would potentially cause loss of money in addition to the identity theft.  Both of these are bad, but they are far from the most devastating hacks that could have occurred here.

Consider what would happen if the hackers didn't just gain access to the frequent flier numbers, but were able to hack all the way into the scheduling and routing systems, or worse, air traffic control.  Suddenly, you've got hackers controlling passenger jets.  

Sure, any hack is undesirable.  But if hacks are ranked in terms of potential devastation, the terrorism aspect of a hacker gaining access to passenger jets vastly outranks their gaining access to frequent flier numbers.

References:

British Airways frequent-flyer accounts hacked. (2015, March 29). Retrieved November 2, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/29/british-airways-frequent-flyer-accounts-hacked