Abta has suffered a cyber attack and the theft of both members’ and customers’ data.

The association revealed the breach this morning, saying it was contacting the members and customers affected.

Abta said the breach occurred at the end of February, with the data of 43,000 individuals and up to 650 Abta members compromised.

In a lengthy statement, Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer said: “We recently became aware of unauthorised access to the web server supporting abta.com by an external infiltrator exploiting a vulnerability.

“The web server is managed for ABTA through a third party web developer and hosting company. The infiltrator exploited that vulnerability to access data provided by some customers of ABTA members and by ABTA members themselves via the website.

“On further, urgent investigation we identified that the incident occurred on the 27th February 2017 and related to some customer information, including complaints about ABTA members, and to documentation uploaded via abta.com in support of ABTA membership.

“Although encrypted, passwords used by ABTA Members and customers of ABTA Members to access our website may also have been accessed.

“Having become aware of the unauthorised access, we immediately notified the third-party suppliers of the abta.com website who immediately fixed the vulnerability.

“ABTA immediately engaged security risk consultants to assess the potential extent of the incident. Specialist technical consultants subsequently confirmed that the web server had been accessed.

“We are not aware of any information being shared beyond the infiltrator. We are actively monitoring the situation, but as a precautionary measure we are taking steps to warn both customers of ABTA members and ABTA members who have the potential to be affected.

“We are today contacting these people and providing them with information and guidance to help keep them safe from identity theft or online fraud.

“We have also alerted the relevant authorities, including the Information Commissioner and the Police.”

Tanzer said: “I would personally like to apologise for the anxiety and concern this incident may cause to any customer of ABTA or ABTA member who may be affected.

“It is extremely disappointing that our web server, managed for ABTA through a third party web developer and hosting company, was compromised, and we are taking every step we can to help those affected.

“I will personally be working with the team to look at what we can learn from this situation.”

Abta said in a statement: “The unauthorised access may have affected approximately 43,000 individuals.  Around 1,000 of these are files that may include personal identity information of customers of ABTA Members (in support of their complaint about an ABTA Member), uploaded since 11th January 2017; around 650 may include personal identity information of ABTA Members.

“The vast majority of the 43,000 relate to people who have registered on abta.com, with email addresses and encrypted passwords, or have filled in an online form with basic contact details which are types of data at a very low exposure risk to identity theft or online fraud.

Specifically, the four categories of data that may have been accessed are:

–          The majority of the data related to email addresses and passwords for any ABTA Member or customer of an ABTA Member that had registered on abta.com. These passwords were encrypted – which means to the human eye it will look like a jumble of characters – and so there is a very low exposure risk of identity theft or online fraud; however as a precautionary measure we are recommending that ABTA Members and affected customers of ABTA Members change their passwords.

–          Contact details of customers of ABTA Members who have used the website to register a complaint about an ABTA Member.

–          A smaller volume of data uploaded via the website by members of the public who had submitted documentation to support a complaint about an ABTA Member since 11th January 2017.

–          A smaller volume of data uploaded via the website by ABTA Members using the ‘self-service’ facility on abta.com, where ABTA Members have uploaded documentation in support of their membership.  The vulnerability that was exploited by the infiltrator only enabled access to uploaded supporting documentation, and did not affect other IT systems or forms that had been completed online.”