British Airways has confirmed a data breach. The London-based airline, the largest in the UK, did not disclose much about the breach, only that hackers stole customer data from its website, ba.com. In a statement, BA said that the “personal and financial details” of customers who made bookings on BA’s site or app between August 21 and September 5 were compromised, but travel or passport information was not taken. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that “around 380,000 card payments” were compromised. BA had more than 45 million passengers last year. “The breach has been resolved and our website is working normally,” the company said in a statement. “British Airways is communicating with affected customers and we advise any customers who believe they may have been affected by this incident to contact their banks or credit card providers and follow their recommended advice,” said the statement. Under the new European GDPR data protections laws, the airline can face fines of up to four percent of its global annual revenue.<doc-sep>Adam Davy/PA Images British Airways said on Thursday it's investigating a data breach that resulted in the theft of customer data. We are investigating the theft of customer data from our website and our mobile app, as a matter of urgency. For more information, please click the following link:https://t.co/2dMgjw1p4r — British Airways (@British_Airways) September 6, 2018 BA says the breach is now resolved, but customers may have had their personal and financial information exposed if they made bookings in the last couple of weeks. Specifically, the affected period is from 10:58 p.m. BST (2:58 p.m. PT) on Aug. 21 and 9:45 p.m. BST (2:45 p.m. PT) on Sept. 5. The stolen data did not include passport or travel info, according to the airline. Both the British Airways app and website were hit by the breach. About 380,000 card payments were affected by the breach, Reuters reports, citing International Airlines Group, BA's parent company. BA says it will be contacting customers who were affected, and advises them to contact their banks and credit card providers. Alex Cruz, CEO of BA, said in a statement, "We are deeply sorry for the disruption that this criminal activity has caused. We take the protection of our customers' data very seriously." The data breach involved customers who booked through BA in a certain timeframe, similar to previous hacks that affected Best Buy and Adidas.<doc-sep>British Airways says it is investigating the theft of customer data from its website and mobile app over a two-week period, during which 380,000 payment cards were exposed (via The Guardian). "From 22:58 BST August 21 2018 until 21:45 BST September 5 2018 inclusive, the personal and financial details of customers making bookings on our website and app were compromised," the airline revealed in a statement on its website. According to BA, travel and passport information was not accessed during the data breach, but concerned customers are being advised to get in touch with their card issuers in the first instance. The company said all customers affected by the breach had been contacted on Thursday night. "British Airways is communicating with affected customers and we advise any customers who believe they may have been affected by this incident to contact their banks or credit card providers and follow their recommended advice." The airline said it was informed of the hacking by a third party, which is why it was able to continue undetected for two weeks, but the company insists that the breach has been resolved and its website and mobile app are now working normally.<doc-sep>Nearly 400,000 customers who booked flights with British Airways between August 21 and September 5 may have had their personal and financial details hacked as part of a "sophisticated, malicious criminal attack," the company's chairman said on Friday. "We discovered that something had happened but we didn't know what it was [on Wednesday evening]. So overnight, teams were trying to figure out the extent of the attack," Alex Cruz, British Airways' chairman, told the BBC. "The first thing was to find out if it was something serious and who it affected or not. The moment that actual customer data had been compromised, that's when we began immediate communication to our customers." The airline said that the hack affected those who booked or made changes to their itinerary on the carrier's website, ba.com, and through its mobile application. British Airways advised customers to change their account passwords and told affected customers to call their bank and "follow their advice." "Click the Forgotten Pin/Password link on the top right-hand corner of the ba.com homepage. We recommend you choose a unique password that you do not use for any other online account," the airline said, according to The Telegraph. Cruz said that customers who were affected by the worst attack to ever hit the company's website and mobile application would be compensated. "We are 100 percent committed to compensate them, period. We are committed to working with any customer who may have been financially affected by this attack, and we will compensate them for any financial hardship that they may have suffered," Cruz told the BBC. The airline said that travel and passport details were not leaked, but that hackers could have gained access to credit card numbers, expiry dates, security codes, names and street or email addresses. This isn't the first issue that British Airways customers have had to face in recent months. At least 7,000 passengers were affected when the airline was forced to cancel dozens of flights to and from Heathrow Airport in London following an IT issue in July. Over 2,000 passengers had their tickets canceled after British Airways mistakenly sold them for the wrong price in June. Flights to Tel Aviv and Dubai, which would usually cost more than $250, were being sold for a little over $1 in what the airline called an "exceptionally rare error."<doc-sep>
All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers.If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. To Fly. To Serve. To have your customers' financial information stolen by unidentified hackers. British Airways today announced it was the victim of a data breach in which the "personal and financial details" of customers were stolen. The Guardian reports that 380,000 "payment cards” were affected. So who exactly are those hundreds of thousands of victims? According to the airline, customers using the BA website or mobile app to make "bookings" between Aug. 21 and Sept. 5 are the ones who should be nervously checking their credit card statements. "We are deeply sorry for the disruption that this criminal activity has caused," read the press release. "We take the protection of our customers’ data very seriously." While this is certainly bad for both British Airways and its customers, things could have been worse. Namely, at least assuming the airline is correct, the hackers did not get away with customers' passport numbers. So at least there's that. "The personal and financial details of customers making bookings on ba.com and the airline’s mobile app were compromised," the press release reiterated. "No passport or travel details were stolen." Still, British Airways thinks that if you used its services during the aforementioned time period you should maybe go ahead and get in touch with your bank posthaste. You know, just in case. But what you do after you call the bank? Well, that's not for BA to say, of course. "We recommend you contact your bank and follow their recommended advice," read the statement. The airline said it's reaching out directly to customers whose data has been stolen, so keep an eye on your inbox. This isn't the first time an airline's customers have been affected by a data breach. In April of this year the Wall Street Journal reported that a hack of one of Delta's vendors possibly exposed the credit card details of hundreds of thousands of its customers. Not great, right? It seems that British Airways is following the worst kind of airline trend. Other than reduced legroom, that is.