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Belarusian and Ukrainian hackers announced today that they had launched a cyberattack on the electronic systems of the Russian airline Aeroflot, leading to the cancellation of 54 flights.
Hackers claim to have “destroyed” 7.000 Aeroflot servers and will publish the personal data of all Russians who have traveled with Aeroflot.
“We announce the successful establishment of a long-term and large-scale operation that led to the hacking and destruction of Aeroflot’s internal IT infrastructure,” the Ukrainian hacker group “Silent Crow” and the Belarusian “Cyber Partisans” wrote in a joint statement.
The attack was possible due to a lapse in the Russian company’s cybersecurity, the Belarusian group added.
Belarusian hackers claim that Aeroflot CEO Sergei Aleksandrovsky made their task easier because he had not changed his password since 2022, and because the airline uses outdated systems, such as Windows XP and Windows 2003.
The Russian prosecutor’s office announced that it had opened an investigation into “illegitimate access” to information systems, indicating that Aeroflot was the victim of a “cyber attack.”
The Russian telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor has not confirmed the loss of data, Russian news agency Ria Novosti reports, and Aeroflot, which has admitted to a glitch in its IT system, has not said so either.
The company said it had canceled 54 flights today, especially departures from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, which is its main base, and that it was working to normalize operations.
Air traffic in Russia has been regularly disrupted in recent months, mainly due to attacks by Ukrainian drones in response to the Russian bombing of Ukraine, and this is the first major cyberattack during the war that has lasted more than three years.
The Kremlin described the attack as “very alarming,” and spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it would clarify how it was possible.
Ukraine and its Western allies often accuse Russia of cyberattacks on the information systems of public and private organizations around the world, a charge Moscow denies.
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