HONOLULU (KHON2) — Hawaiian Airlines is the latest victim of a cybersecurity attack. The company announced the issue to customers on the morning of June 26.
Experts say while your financial information should be safe, customers should be cautious of potential phishing attacks.
Hawaiian Airlines customers who went to their website or app were notified by an alert stating in part, Hawaiian Airlines is addressing a cyber-security event that has affected some of our IT systems. Hawaiian says flights were not affected.
KHON2 asked Hawaiian how many customers were affected, and what, if any, information was compromised. They declined to offer specifics.
However, experts tell us your credit card information should be safe because most companies use encryption technology to store that information. However, they say stuff like your name, address and email could be just as valuable to scammers.
“They sell that, the hackers, they sell that information, make a bunch of money,” said Don Langman of Supergeeks. “Then other scammers start, just chain reaction.”
The chain reaction includes you being flooded with random emails. So experts say be skeptical about everything, because all it takes is one mistake.
“Anything that they’re not, they didn’t make contact with, it’s a scam,” Langman said. “Just automatically, it’s a scam.”
Experts say it’s also good idea to use a third party payment provider like Paypal, Venmo, Apple or Google pay. That way, stores won’t even get your credit card info.
Also, make sure you create strong passwords for your accounts.
“Apple will create a very strong password and you will only have access to that password,” said Brett Sortland of We Fix Phones Oahu. “So Apple either has touch ID or face ID. It’s a very strong security feature and it works well for most people.”
Hawaiian says it has been in contact with experts and federal authorities about this situation.