British Airways says a further 185,000 payment cards possibly hit in cyber attack

FILE PHOTO - People queue with their luggage for the British Airways check-in desk at Gatwick Airport in southern England, Britain, May 28, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay FILE PHOTO - People queue with their luggage for the British Airways check-in desk at Gatwick Airport in southern England, Britain, May 28, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

(Reuters) – International Airlines Group said an investigation into the theft of customers’ data at its unit British Airways showed the hackers may have stolen personal information from an additional 185,000 payment cards.

BA said in September that around 380,000 card payments were compromised, with hackers obtaining names, street and email addresses, credit card numbers, expiry dates and security codes – sufficient information to steal from accounts.

On Thursday, British Airways revised that number down, saying that only 244,000 of those originally identified were affected, but said additional customers could have been affected.

On the whole, the total number of payment cards potentially affected stood at 429,000 as of Thursday.

The hackers obtained names, street and email addresses, credit card numbers, expiry dates and in some cases, security codes – sufficient information to steal from accounts.

(Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

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