Airbus' intellectual property could have been targeted in data breach Airbus, the aircraft manufacturer, which designs, manufacturers and sells thousands of civil and military aerospace products globally, has been struck by a data breach. The company announced yesterday that it had detected a cyber incident on Airbus ‘commercial aircraft business' information systems, which resulted in unauthorized access to data, but it claimed that there was no impact on Airbus’ commercial operations. Airbus emphasized that the incident was being investigated by its own 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”. It is still unknown if any specific data was targeted, although Airbus said that “some personal data was accessed”. The manufacturer claimed it was mostly professional contact and IT identification details of some Airbus employees in Europe that had been stolen. While the company is trying its best to make the data breach sound like it is not a huge incident, Max Vetter, chief cyber officer at Immersive Labs, suggests that organizations like Airbus hold highly specialised intellectual property, and that this was likely to be targeted by threat actors. “A huge amount of capital is poured into the R&D stage in such organizations, a cost which malicious actors can circumvent by trying to steal the resulting data,” he said. “It is known that some nation states have been using this kind of espionage to speed up the production of technology for years. For this reason, it is crucial that technical countermeasures and cyber skills are continually refined to keep pace with attackers,” he added. Irra Ariella Khi, CEO of VChain, believes that the Airbus security breach is another example that current processes for storing sensitive data are not fit for purpose – and called for systems built using privacy by design principles to be used instead. “Personal data of employees, operatives, or passengers held by those operating in the aviation industry is highly sensitive. The industry is highly regulated for a reason: data security is vital for ensuring safety. Whatever the motivation of the attack is, we should not be making it so easy to access data,” she said. Airbus has already contacted the relevant regulatory authorities and has called for its employees to take necessary precautions going forward.
Airbus said its commercial aircraft business information systems had suffered a data breach. The aircraft manufacturer claimed that the attack had not impacted on its commercial operations but said personal data of some of its European employees had been stolen, including professional contact and identification details. However Max Vetter, chief cyber officer at cyber assessment company Immersive Labs, said the company's intellectual property was likely to have been the hackers’ target.