Aeroflot, the national airline of Russia, had to abort more than 40 flights Monday after a huge cyberattack hit its computerized systems.
Multiple flights were affected in the entire country, while others couldn’t take off on time, which left the visitors disturbed, as this is a holiday season in Russia and traveling season is at its peak.
Silent Crow and Belarusian Cyberpartisans, two hacking groups claiming to be pro-Ukrainian, said they were behind the incident.
The groups said they had been planning this hacking for more than a year and finally managed to hack into Aeroflot’s systems.
Both Hacking Groups Say The Operation was Conducted In Support of Ukraine
The hackers claimed that they neutralized 7,000 servers and gained access to the systems of many employees working in the department, including those of top officials.
While the Belarusian Cyberpartisans revealed that the hacking was carried out in support of Ukraine, the Silent Crow said, “Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!”
The two groups have also said earlier that their hackers carried out a cyberattack on key Russian sites and managed to access the database of multiple Russian firms.
In response, Aeroflot stated that it is trying to solve the problems and weed out the issues planted by the hackers so that operations can continue with ease. While many of the disrupted flights were interstate, the remaining ones were international.
The Kremlin called the situation “worrying.” Government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the threat of hacking is serious for all large companies. Prosecutors confirmed the disruption was caused by a hack and opened a criminal investigation.
Russian Authorities Seek Strong Cybersecurity to Prevent a Repeat
Senior Russian lawmakers reacted strongly. Anton Gorelkin said Russia was under attack on all fronts, including in cyberspace. He warned that the hackers might be backed by unfriendly countries.
The Ukraine war began in February 2022, and since then, Russian flights have remained disturbed due to issues such as drone threats and airport closures.
But this hacking incident could be considered the most dangerous because Russia’s main airline is the target in this.
Following the news, the shares of Aeroflot plunged by around 4%, and experts urged more robust cybersecurity systems to avoid more incidents like these in the future.
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