Russia’s Aeroflot canceled flights after a pro-Ukrainian group claimed an attack on the airline. File Photo by Etienne Laurent/EPA
A cyber attack on Russia’s largest airline on Monday saw dozens of canceled flights after a pro-Ukraine team took responsibility for hacking airline computer systems.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called it “quite alarming” after at least 42 scheduled Aeroflot flights largely domestic in Russia got canceled.
Aeroflot officials gave no specific details or how long it would take to restore its mainframe after officials informed passengers of a “failure” in its tech systems advising service disruptions, but did warn travelers of delays and cancellations.
The airline said its tech teams were “actively working to minimize the impact on flight operations and restore all services to normal as quickly as possible.”
“We kindly ask passengers to monitor real-time updates on airport websites, information displays, and public announcements across the airline’s route network,” the airline said in a statement.
Aeroflot’s cyber-security attack was a direct result of Russia’s full-on invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the hacker group calling itself “Silent Crow” confirmed.
Russia’s prosecutor general’s office also confirmed that Aeroflot’s technological issues were a result of a virtual attack on its computer systems and stated that a criminal investigation is underway.
Silent Crow says it worked with a separate group based in Belarus called “Cyber Partisans BY.”
They pressed unverified claimed of access to flight history data, that it destroyed roughly 7,000 Aeroflot servers, compromised its corporate computer structure and further threatened to released “the personal data of all Russians who have ever flown Aeroflot.”
On its Telegram channel, Silent Crow wrote how for a year, “we were inside their corporate network, methodically developing access, going deep into the very core of the infrastructure.”
Meanwhile, Aeroflot partner air carries Rossiya and Probed have not reported any technological issues.
The cyber attack on Russia’s flag air carrier arrived weeks after another on Australian airline Qantas exposed the data of six million customers. That followed a similar event at the end of June on Hawaiian Airlines by a group FBI officials believe to be young adults and teens living in the United States and Britain.
“Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!” Silent Crow said in a statement.
