With the hospitality industry a key target of cybercrime, Global Travel deployed Darktrace cyber AI for autonomous response.

Global Travel, a Singapore Top 500 Enterprise, has deployed artificial intelligence (AI) to protect confidential traveler information, including passport data, for corporate and leisure travelers.

With increasing level of connectivity and digitization across the value chain, the aviation and travel sector has seen an increase in not only business benefits but also malicious cyber-attacks. In 2018, Cathay Pacific Airways suffered a data breach, in which the personal data of more than 9.4 million customers was leaked, followed by recent cyber-attacks launched on Singapore Airlines and on Malaysia’s Malindo Air this year.

According to Ernst & Young, the hospitality industry is one of the fastest-growing targets for cybercrime, ranking third after retail and finance last year. Riding off the host of data breaches in the aviation sector, more companies in the travel and tourism industry are taking proactive measures to ensure that their customers’ data remain safe.

With more than 40 years of experience in corporate and leisure travel, Global Travel’s reputation in Singapore is well-established. The company takes cybersecurity seriously in light of the numerous cyber-attacks launched on organizations all over the world, where cybercriminals look to steal or compromise personal information.

While the company complies with Singapore data privacy regulations under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), Global Travel selected Darktrace to strengthen its security posture. It relies on Darktrace’s cyber AI to not only monitor its digital systems 24/7, but also to act on its behalf when the AI spots malicious activity occurring.

This ‘machine fights back’ capability is known in the industry as ‘Autonomous Response’, and enables computer-speed attacks to be quelled in a matter of seconds.

“Given our national standing and the regulatory frameworks in place, an attack on our enterprise would be nothing short of a crisis,” said James Chua, General Manager at Global Travel.

“Darktrace Autonomous Response has been the crucial difference between an emerging threat and a crisis. Using AI to autonomously block attacks within seconds, we can feel confident that our data is protected from cyber-criminals – despite our industry becoming more vulnerable by the day.”

Darktrace’s self-learning AI is modeled on the human immune system and used by more than 3,000 organizations to protect against threats to the cloud, email, IoT, networks and industrial systems. This includes insider threat, industrial espionage, IoT compromises, zero-day malware, data loss, supply chain risk and long-term infrastructure vulnerabilities.