LONDON: More than 3,000 Afghans, British troops and government officials have had their personal data breached following a cyberattack, the UK’s Ministry of Defense has said.
Some of the victims may have had their information hacked for a second time, following the ministry’s high-profile Afghan data breach discovered in 2023, which was the subject of a superinjunction — preventing it from being publicly disclosed — until last month.
The 2023 breach exposed the identities of thousands of Afghans who had served alongside British forces as part of the multinational decade-long conflict against the Taliban. Many of them reported receiving threats after the leaked database was apparently discovered by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
Following the latest incident, an alert was sent to about 3,700 affected people on Friday, The Times reported. They were told that their personal information had been breached, including name, date of birth and passport number.
The data was included in a record of information relating to evacuation flights from Afghanistan to England’s Stansted Airport between January and March 2024.
