KUALA LUMPUR: Share prices of Capital A Bhd were unchanged on Wednesday in thin trading despite reports that its unit AirAsia Group was rocked with a severe data breach.
Analysts said there were precedents, and hence the ransomware attack on personal details of AirAsia passengers and employees would not pose a significant impact on Capital A's share price and fundamentals.
Rakuten Trade head of equity sales Vincent Lau said as this was not the first cyber attack involving listed companies in Malaysia, it would not dampen the low-cost carrier's operationally and financially.
"(Generally) the fundamentals of airlines are improving with air traffic having been on an increasing trend as countries open their borders now. Maybe there should be more talks on how to beef up our cybersecurity in Malaysia but this will not affect Capital A financially and operationally," Lau told the New Straits Times.
Personal data of about five million AirAsia passengers and employees was reportedly hacked by cybercriminal gang calling itself "Daixin Team".
Daixin had stolen the data on Nov 11 and 12 this year, according to DataBreaches.net, the first news outlet to report the ransomware attack on Tuesday.
Data compromised included full names, booking ID and employee information with photos, the portal said.
AirAsia declined to comment on the DataBreaches.net report. AirAsia Group employs nearly 15,000 people.
Capital A, the largest airline in Malaysia by fleet size and destinations, was unchanged until late afternoon trade.
Except for a brief period during the afternoon session, the stock remained unchanged at 56 sen, with a volume of 4.25 million shares as of 3.30pm on Wednesday.
Capital A shed 0.89 per cent at 3.45pm, before ending the day at 56 sen again with 5.51 million shares traded.
On Monday, the stock closed at 58 sen with 4.15 million shares changing hands. The next day, the trading volume was higher at 5.8 million units.
Over the past five trading days, Capital A shed nearly four per cent per cent of its share value, and about 10 per cent over the past 30 days.
Another airline in Capital A's stable, AirAsia X Bhd, saw its share price gain three sen or 7.59 per cent to 42.5 sen yesterday.
The Daixin breach is more severe than the 67GB data breach supposedly from the Election Commission database involving 800,000 voters recently.
Daixin told DataBreaches.net that it had demanded a ransom to unlock it, although it seemed to have taken pity on AirAsia.
It would not hack AirAsia again due to "the chaotic organisation of the network and absence of any standards".
"The internal network was configured without any rules and as a result worked very poorly. At the same time, the network protection was very, very weak," Daixin told the portal.