Delta Air Lines is offering you two years of free consumer protection services if you believe that your personal financial information was compromised as a result of what the airline called a “cyber incident” between Tuesday, September 26, 2017 and Thursday, October 12, 2017 — during which certain payment information from customers of Delta Air Lines may have been breached.
Two Years of Free Credit Monitoring Offered by Delta Air Lines Resulting From Cyber Incident
Although Delta Air Lines is currently unable to definitively determine whether the information of any of its estimated several hundred customers was actually accessed or subsequently compromised, the airline immediately began working with [24]7.ai — which is the company that notified Delta Air Lines of the cyber incident — to understand any potential impact the incident had on the customers of Delta Air Lines; the official Internet web site of Delta Air Lines; or any computer system of Delta Air Lines. The airline also engaged federal law enforcement and forensic teams; and has confirmed that the incident was resolved by [24]7.ai last October.
Since that information was released, Delta Air Lines has implemented the following initiatives for its customers:
- Launched this dedicated Internet web site on Thursday, April 5, 2018 at noon Eastern Daylight Time, which will be updated regularly to address customer questions and concerns.
- Work diligently to directly contact customers — including by first-class postal mail — who may have been impacted by the [24]7.ai cyber incident.
- Launch a dedicated telephone line and Internet web site in order to address the concerns of the small subset of customers who were impacted.
- Ensure that customers are not responsible for the [24]7.ai cyber incident should the payment cards of customers be found to have been used fraudulently.
- Offer free credit monitoring to those customers who were impacted.
What You Can Do If You Believe You Were Impacted
If you used your credit card to purchase products or services at the official Internet web site of Delta Air Lines between Tuesday, September 26, 2017 and Thursday, October 12, 2017 and believe you could be impacted by the cyber incident, you may want to consider the following information:
- Delta Air Lines has partnered with AllClear ID — which is a leading customer security and fraud protection firm — to offer a suite of credit monitoring services for free for two years starting on Saturday, April 7, 2018.
- If you believe your credit card was used to make a fraudulent purchase, please contact the issuer of the card immediately and follow their instructions.
Summary
No other personal information of customers — such as passport, government identification, security, or SkyMiles information — was impacted as a result of the cyber incident.
That Delta Air Lines has taken this matter very seriously and accepted full responsibility by implementing initiatives for its customers proactively is quite reassuring, as it is doing a lot more than other companies whose customers have experienced similar — or worse — situations. That helps to strengthen trust between the airline and its customers.
The only thing I wonder — which I have yet to see addressed — is if customers will automatically be billed for the third year once the two-year period has concluded…
The main campus of the world headquarters of Delta Air Lines in Atlanta. Photograph ©2009 by Brian Cohen.
