Data breach at Korean Air leaks 30,000 employee records

A data breach involving the personal information of Korean Air employees was recently reported — the second such incident in the airline industry following a similar case at Asiana Airlines last week.

A Korean Air airplane [JOONGANG ILBO]

A data breach involving the personal information of Korean Air employees was recently reported — the second such incident in the airline industry following a similar case at Asiana Airlines last week. The breach occurred after a cyberattack on KC&D Service, a former in-flight catering subsidiary of Korean Air.

Korean Air posted an internal notice stating that KC&D had informed them of a leak involving personal data belonging to the airline’s employees, according to sources on Monday. The information — including names and bank account numbers — involved approximately 30,000 records. KC&D was sold to private equity firm Hahn & Company in 2020.

The airline added that no customer data appears to have been affected by the breach.

“Korean Air takes this incident very seriously, especially since it involves employee data, even if it originated from a third-party vendor that was sold off,” said Woo Kee-hong, vice chairman of Korean Air, in a message to employees. “We are currently focusing all our efforts on identifying the full scope of the breach and who was affected.”

Data breach of employees of Korean Air notified in a post on Dec. 29, 2025 [JOONGANG ILBO]

The company completed emergency security measures immediately after realizing the breach, including a safety check on service integrations with KC&D, and voluntarily reported the incident to the relevant authorities, according to a Korean Air representative.

"We are working to fully understand the details of the breach and have urged KC&D to analyze the incident and prevent any recurrence," said the official. "We also plan to further strengthen our personal data protection posture."

Last week, Asiana Airlines also disclosed a breach involving the personal information of about 10,000 employees.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. BY KIM KYUNG-MI [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]