Vietnam Airlines has confirmed that personal data from its frequent-flyer program and customer records was leaked, while electronics distributor Avnet revealed theft of encrypted corporate data.

One of the major problems of the digitalized world is its interconnected nature. Criminals need to penetrate just one service provider company to obtain access to a wide range of its clients. Such a third-party compromise happened with Salesforce.

Salesforce has confirmed that it won’t pay any ransom to the attackers. Following that announcement, the criminals turned their attention to individual companies, trying to extort them directly and releasing stolen data to pressure victims. One of the organizations caught up in this wave is Vietnam Airlines.

The airline has officially acknowledged the breach. About 63 gigabytes of data were exposed, covering more than 23 million records tied to roughly 7.3 million people. The leaked information spans from November 2020 through June 2025 and includes both personal data and corporate account details, along with information from Lotusmiles, the airline’s frequent flyer program.

Vietnam Airlines emphasized that the hackers only managed to access a limited portion of customer data. Credit card details, payment information, passwords, and national ID numbers were not affected. Still, some personal and business information did leak, including:

• Age
• Full name
• Contact information
• Customer status
• Cargo-related data

Because of the breach, Vietnam Airlines customers could now be targeted by phishing emails or scams that pretend to come from the company. Criminals can use the exposed details to make their messages look legitimate and trick people into revealing more personal information or financial data.

Another cybersecurity incident has affected Avnet, a global electronics distributor. The company operates in 125 countries around the world, has 15,000 employees, and $22 billion in annual revenue. Avnet also publicly confirmed that an unauthorized third party gained access to corporate data and was able to exfiltrate it.

According to reports, attackers accessed a sales database hosted on an external service. The stolen records appear to be connected to Avnet’s business operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). The cybercriminals claim to have stolen a 1.3 TB compressed archive, which could translate to between 7 TB and 12 TB of uncompressed data.

To pressure Avnet into paying a ransom, the attackers set up a leak site and published a sample of the stolen information. Company officials stated that the impact of the breach is minimal, explaining that global operations were not disrupted and that the stolen files were encrypted. In other words, the sensitive records cannot be read without Avnet’s proprietary decryption tools, which the criminals were unable to access.

However, some journalists were able to review published data samples. They report that some files contain personally identifiable information (PII) in plain text. Avnet later clarified that the encrypted files primarily included:

• Point-of-sale records
• Potential sales opportunities
• Customer contact details

Despite the data leak, Avnet has shown strong resilience, with its operations remaining unaffected. The company’s use of encryption tools played a key role in minimizing potential damage and containing the incident.

A multilayered approach to information security is not hot news. Effective protection of sensitive data requires a combination of tools, which will provide visibility into existing files, manage user access rights, prevent unauthorized access, and keep file backups. Encryption is one of the last lines of defense. It ensures that even if criminals are able to bypass all security measures and gain access to confidential data, they won’t have the ability to open the content.

Advanced DLP solutions, like our Risk Monitor, unify various protective capabilities in one platform. Risk Monitor classifies data, manages user access rights according to file labels and users job duties, and provides proactive protection with watermarks and prevents data leaks.

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