Members of the loyalty programme AsiaMiles will be asked to set new, tougher-to-crack passwords following the cyber-theft of millions of air miles and gifts from member accounts.
Air miles’ members are required to set new passwords with both letters and numbers, instead of the current numeric only passwords.
It follows the theft from 121 AsiaMiles accounts of 4.7 million miles and gifts worth HK$100,000.
Four men from Hong Kong were arrested in in January in connection with the theft.
The new alphanumeric password format would be introduced by the middle of the year.
“Since a small number of such members have special needs and situations, we have already temporarily recredited the suspected stolen miles in relevant accounts,” the company said.
AsiaMiles has over seven million members from 25 member airlines including Cathay Pacific and Dragonair.
