Chinese Hackers Breached United

Recently a group of hackers from China reportedly hacked into network systems of United Airlines and swept clean the flight manifests.

To protect United’s crucial data, including flight manifests, two significant changes would help it. First, data should be encrypted, or jumbled up using a computer algorithm that only the company can decode, according to Alan Kessler, Chief Executive, Vormetric, a cyber-security firm.

United Airlines spokesman Luke Punzenberger would not comment on the breach but said the airline remains “vigilant in protecting against unauthorised access”. By cross-referencing information from the various industries that have been hacked, the resulting database could compromise the U.S. government, its employees and citizens in countless ways.

The China-backed hackers are the ones that were behind other data breaches including medical data from health insurer Anthem Inc. and security clearance records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Bloomberg reported.

The United Airlines attack has raised concerns about schedule disruptions or mistakes caused by hackers while navigating the large and sensitive systems. Bloomberg says that the combination of OPM, insurance and travel information could be used to blackmail Americans working in defense and intelligence.

Zhu Haiquan, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said in a statement: “The Chinese government and the personnel in its institutions never engage in any form of cyberattack”.