Eurostar is the latest transportation company to be hit by a data breach.
The breach, which occurred between 15 and 19 October, was noticed when Eurostar detected an “unauthorised attempt” to hack into its systems and access user accounts. Eurostar emailed customers with the information, stating that it had identified multiple attempts to access eurostar.com accounts using users’ email addresses and passwords.
As credit card details and payment information are not stored online, these details haven’t been compromised, Eurostar confirmed. However, it’s still unknown just how many people have been affected by the breach, or whether any data has actually been taken.
Eurostar reported the data breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as required by law. The ICO reports that they’ve “received data breach report from Eurostar and are making enquiries”.
READ NEXT: How to protect yourself from a data breach
“We have taken this action as a precaution because we identified what we believe to be an unauthorised automated attempt to access eurostar.com accounts using your email address and password,” the company told customers.
“We’ve since carried out an investigation which shows that your account was logged into between the 15 and 19 October. If you didn’t log in during this period, there’s a possibility your account was accessed by this unauthorised attempt.”
READ NEXT: The biggest data breaches of 2018
Customers were advised to check their accounts for “anything unusual” and update their passwords on any site where they also use the same password.
“This email was sent after we identified what we believe to be an unauthorised automated attempt to access customer accounts, so as a precaution, we asked all account holders to reset their password,” explained a Eurostar spokesperson. “We deliberately never store any payment details or bank card information, so there is no possibility of those being compromised”.
This isn’t the first time a major transport company has been hit by a huge data breach. Both British Airways and Cathay Pacific have been on the receiving end of some beefy data security compromises. Cathay Pacific saw the account and travel information of over 9 million customers compromised earlier this month and in September British Airways was hit by a major breach that appears to have only grown in scale over time.
Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way.
