Cyber-Crime

Travel and leisure giant was just one of many victims of the cybercrooks' crime spree this year

Carnival Corporation - the world's largest cruise operator - has confirmed a digital heist, a month after hacking crew ShinyHunters claimed to have stolen millions of customers' records.

The breach, Carnival confirmed, stemmed from an April 14 social engineering attack on an employee, though the company declined to comment on the scale or name ShinyHunters.

However, a company filing with the Maine attorney general's office puts the number of affected individuals at just under six million, down from the 8.7 million records previously listed by  Have I Been Pwned. 

Carnival previously acknowledged the phishing attack at the time, but it did not say whether any data had been accessed or stolen.

ShinyHunters claimed it lifted terabytes' worth of Carnival records and hinted at a breakdown in negotiations, likely related to the criminal outfit's extortion demands.

"The company failed to reach an agreement with us despite our incredible patience," ShinyHunters wrote on its data leak site, adding: "They don't care."

Following a "thorough and time-consuming analysis of the impacted data," Carnival confirmed that names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and state identification numbers were all included in the breach.

As is often the case in data theft incidents, individuals will be affected to different degrees, depending on what information they shared with the company.

Carnival began sending notifications directly to affected individuals on Wednesday. Those communications include details about how recipients can redeem two years of free credit monitoring services, as is common in US breach notifications, via TransUnion. 

It closed its message with a promise to improve: "In addition to the comprehensive security measures the company had in place prior to the incident, it has taken steps to further safeguard its systems, including enhancing its security and monitoring controls. 

"The company will continue to advance its IT security and data privacy controls to stay ahead of an ever-evolving threat landscape." ®