Latest news with #contactcentre
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Qantas confirms cyber-attack exposed records of up to 6 million customers
Qantas has suffered a major cyber-attack, potentially exposing the records of up to 6m customers. The airline said in a statement on Wednesday that the affected system has now been contained and its systems were secured. The system in question was a third-party platform used by the airline's contact centre, which contains the records of 6 million customers. The data includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers. It did not contain credit card details, financial information or passport details. Frequent flyer accounts were not compromised, neither were passwords, PINs or login details. Qantas said it first detected the unusual activity on Monday and immediately took steps to contain the system. Qantas is assessing the portion of data stolen but said it was expected to be 'significant'. Qantas said it has informed the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as well as the Australian federal police. The airline's chief executive, Vanessa Hudson, said the company had recruited independent specialised cybersecurity experts to investigate the matter. A dedicated customer support line and a dedicated page on the company's website will update customers as the investigation progresses. 'We sincerely apologise to our customers and we recognise the uncertainty this will cause. Our customers trust us with their personal information and we take that responsibility seriously,' Hudson said. 'We are contacting our customers today and our focus is on providing them with the necessary support.' Cyber attacks remain on the increase in Australia, after superannuation funds in April that hacks on a small handful of customers had resulted in more than half a million being taken from their accounts. In May, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said the number of data breaches reported under the mandatory notification scheme had increased by 25% in 2024, compared to 2023. According to the report covering 1 July to 31 December 2024, there were 595 data breaches in the latter half of the year, taking the total number of breaches reported that year to 1,113, up 25% from 893 in 2023. In the half year, the highest number of reports came from health providers (121) followed by government (100), finance (54), legal and accounting (36), and retail (34). The report found 69% of the data breaches occurred due to malicious or criminal attack, with phishing - that is using compromised credentials to access data - being the most common at 34% of such incidents. It was followed by ransomware at 24%. The majority of reported breaches affected less than 5,000 people each, but two were reported to affect between 500,000 and 1 million people. Most personal information in the breaches comprised of contact information, ID information or financial or health information.
CNA
01-07-2025
- Business
- CNA
Australia's Qantas confirms cyber incident at one of its contact centres
Australia's Qantas Airways confirmed on Wednesday a cyber incident at one of its contact centres, impacting customer data. The company said the breach occurred when a cybercriminal targeted a call centre and accessed a third-party customer servicing platform. "We are continuing to investigate the proportion of the data that has been stolen, though we expect it will be significant," Qantas said in a statement. The airline added that the system is currently contained, with no effect on its operations or the safety of the airline.
BBC News
30-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Wiltshire Police cuts 101 call answer time
A police force says the length of time it takes to reach one of its 101 call operators has dropped by more than two thirds in the last April 2024, Wiltshire Police said it took an of average 16 seconds to get through to them, whereas in March this year that figure had reduced to just five force says they have implemented solutions to cut waiting times and deploy help sooner, including hiring more staff and increasing training. The national target is to answer 90% of calls in less than 10 seconds. Wiltshire Police said it has been at or around that figure for the last six months. The force said call wait times did spike to 37 seconds in June - traditionally seen as one of the busiest times of the subsequently launched an improvement plan to help improve the numbers, conducting quality assurance audits and recruiting new has also tracked the overall experience of staff in the contact centre and has retained a higher number of operators, boosting the number of experienced staff. 'Hard graft' There have also been improvements to the amount of time it takes to answer 999 calls, the force added. Each month, the call centre receives around 10,000 calls to the non-emergency number, alongside 8,000 calls to 999 for immediate Insp Allen Lumley, part of the command team, said: "We want to make sure that we provide a sustained focus on putting the caller at the heart of what we do -staying empathetic to each and every caller."It has taken a long time to turn around our performance because of the time it takes to embed these things and start to bear the fruit of our hard graft."We will continue to work hard to enhance our performance and solidify the efforts made this far."
