ABTA, the website belonging to the largest travel and trade organization that is responsible for more than $39 billion in vacation sales through their relationships with travel agents and tour operators, has been involved in a data breach that may have impacted as many as 43,000 users. Of those 43,000 users, approximately 13,000 users had personally identifiable information, such as email addresses and phone numbers, stored on the website. In addition, user’s vacation photos and account passwords may have been compromised.

ABTA has known about the data breach since February 27th, but only released this information today.

ABTA is alerting 29,000 of their users to the situation, along with providing them with some next steps to help them protect their information.

The CEO of ABTA, Mike Tanzer, had this to say: “I would personally like to apologize for the anxiety and concern that this incident may cause to any customer of ABTA or ABTA Member who may be affected.” He added, “It is extremely disappointing that our web server, managed for ABTA through a third party web developer and hosting company, was compromised, and we are taking every step we can to help those affected. I will personally be working with the team to look at what we can learn from this situation.”

What To Do If You Were Involved In The ABTA Data Beach?

If you are currently registered with the ABTA, there are a few things that you should do immediately.

  • Change your password. If you use the same password to access any other accounts, you should change those passwords, as well.
  • Documents that were uploaded to the ABTA website in relation to complaints may have been accessed as part of this breach – so any private or personal information contained in those documents has likely been compromised.
  • Continue to actively monitor your bank and other financial accounts, as well as your social media and email accounts for suspicious activity.
  • Consider signing up for an identity theft protection service as an additional layer of protection.

Maryann Bell
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