More than 50 flights were canceled on Tuesday due to a cyberattack on Aeroflot's IT systems that occurred on Monday, Reuters reported, citing Russian media. The hacker group Tichy Kruk claimed responsibility for the attack on the systems of Russia's largest airline.
In Russia, due to the failure, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described on Monday as “alarming,” more than 100 flights were canceled on Monday and Tuesday, and many takeoffs were delayed.
Reuters noted that while the morning flight schedule showed complications caused by the outage, the rest of the day's flight schedule appeared relatively normal. Aeroflot announced on Tuesday that 93% of its scheduled flights from Moscow should operate as planned.
The Silent Crow group noted in a statement issued on Monday that they had been preparing the attack for about a year, which allowed for the severe impact on Aeroflot's IT systems. Furthermore, the hackers, who describe themselves as pro-Ukrainian, threatened to release sensitive data to anyone traveling on Aeroflot aircraft. They concluded the statement with an appeal: “Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!”
The Russian prosecutor's office launched an investigation on Monday into a hacker attack on Aeroflot's systems.
The Silent Crow statement mentioned that the attack was prepared and carried out in cooperation with the Belarusian Cyberpartisans group (Cyberpartisans BY), i.e. Belarusian hackers operating outside the country.
Foreign media emphasized that independent observers were unable to verify the scale of the damage caused by the cyberattack. They noted that hackers often exaggerate the effects of their actions, especially considering that such attacks can impact, among other things, the morale of soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
Reuters noted that despite sanctions imposed on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, Aeroflot remains one of the world's largest carriers in terms of passenger numbers. The air passenger market in Russia is highly developed. (PAP)
awm/ szm/
