Frontier Airlines Sued Twice After Data Breach Hit 11,482 People—Ransomware Gang Claims Credit

Frontier Airlines is facing two class action suits after a data breach involving over 11,000 employees and customers. A group calling itself Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters claims it stole a “treasure trove” of personal information and demanded a ransom. The Texas Attorney General’s breach database says the unauthorized access ran from May 12 through June 3 and was discovered June 18. It lists 11,482 people affected and says the data included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, driver’s-license and other government identification numbers, dates of birth and other information. Frontier acknowledged the breach, says it brought in an outside cybersecurity firm, contacted law enforcement, and found no evidence of continuing access. A Frontier employee filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Colorado federal court accusing Frontier of negligence, invasion of privacy and breach of fiduciary duty and seeks a class action representing everyone in the United States whose information was compromised. A passenger filed a separate proposed class action in Colorado on Monday. While it’s not clear this is related, Frontier had just been contacted by a security researcher in March saying a confirmation number and last name (which are both printed on a boarding pass) could pull up passenger contact information, birth dates, passport details, Known Traveler Numbers, payment history and partial card information through Frontier’s website. They’re on notice about security flaws, but they say they fixed this specific issue. Here’s the thing – as far as I can tell, other than ‘spending time researching the breach and changing passwords’ it’s not clear that either plaintiff was actually harmed. All our data is out there on the dark web already. Most of the time it lays dormant. There’s so much of it, and most of us aren’t worth bothering with. A federal lawsuit needs a concrete injury, not just the idea that one could happen later. Frontier’s IT security may have been inadequate but the truth right now is that so is everyone’s. Leaving aside how much data is already out there, and much more sensitive data, frontier AI models seem almost impossible to defend against. I know the argument that if we accelerate access to the models that we’ll be able to use them to plug holes before they can be exploited, but most systems won’t be plugged fast enough. Topics on this page