Qantas Response to Cyberattack – A Small Step in the Right Direction

Qantas posted a notice on its web site in July that a cyber attack exposed data of about 6 million customers. The data included names, emails phone numbers and birth dates but no financial or passport info, so in the grand scheme of cyber attacks, there have been a lot worse.

“The incident occurred when a cyber criminal targeted a call center and gained access to a third party customer servicing platform. There is no impact to Qantas’ operations or the safety of the airline,” the company said.

Qantas reported $1.39 billion in profit in 2024.

But what are the consequences of this?

Did any Qantas executives get fired? Or worse? No.

And this is typical. Gee, we are sorry, now lets move on.

So what did Qantas do that is different?

Senior leaders at Australian airline Qantas have had their annual bonuses reduced by 15% following a cyberattack in July that caused a range of issues for the company. 

“While management took immediate action to contain the breach, support customers and put additional protections in place, in recognition of the seriousness of the incident, we decided to reduce 2024/25 short term bonuses by 15 percentage points for the CEO and Executive Management,” group chairman Mullen said. 

That translates to $250,000 loss for CEO Vanessa Hudson. She has a base salary of $1.6 million and could make as much as $5.8 if the company meets all of its targets.

Still, that is a real number and it points out that not taking security seriously does have consequences.

How many companies will follow in their lead? Unknown, but I salute them for starting the ball rolling.

Credit: The Record

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