Before jumping to conclusions, the following information so far has no correlation to the recent United Airlines (UA) systems failures. However, the world’s second largest airline disclosed that there was a breach of their systems in May or June of this year.
A link has been made to the massive intrusion earlier this year of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Anthem healthcare incident. All of them are believed to have been the work of the same group based in China.
United Airlines is the largest carrier for the U.S. government and one of its main departure and destination points is Dulles Airport near Washington D.C.
Experts who are reviewing the information have said that the information gained from UA and the information from the other breaches, can be used by the hackers to blackmail Americans working the defense and intelligence industries. Although this is speculation at this point.
It is highly recommended that all government employees check their credit reports for any suspicious activity. If social security numbers are to be used, there is the possibility that whomever is using them will apply for credit somewhere. You can start with the site annualcreditreport.com where you can get one at no charge from each of the three major credit bureaus. Rather than getting them all at one time, consider staggering them and get one every four months. This will allow you catch potential fraud sooner. The earlier it is identified and reported, the better for you.
Also consider obtaining credit monitoring services. If you have been the victim of a data breach recently, several of those companies are offering this at no charge. Check their websites and see if it is an option for you and how to activate that. There are other precautions you can take, such as putting a freeze on your credit, but it will prevent anyone from obtaining credit, including you. So, carefully consider things like that. Remember that none of these measures will prevent your identity from being stolen as a result of this or any other breach. However, anything you can do to catch it early, the better off you will be.
Since healthcare information was also stolen in the Anthem incident, carefully check all benefits statements received from your insurance providers. Report discrepancies right away.
Stolen from this UA incident were manifests that include flight and destination information. The Chinese government spokesperson, Zhu Haiquan provided a statement denying any involvement in this or any other cyberattack. However, security firm FireEye has estimated that the same Chinese-based hackers have been involved in infiltrations of ten or more U.S. companies and organizations.
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