The hackers assured that they have “destroyed” 7000 servers in the airline and say they want to publish the personal data of all the Russians having traveled with Aeroflot. The Kremlin judges this incident “quite alarming”.
Belarusses and Ukrainian hackers claimed a cyber attack on Monday against the Russian airline Aeroflot, which led to the cancellation of some 54 flights according to this company. “We are announcing the successful implementation of a long -term and large -scale operation which led to the hacking and destruction of the internal IT infrastructure of Aeroflot”said in a joint statement the group of Ukrainian hackers, “Silent crow”and that of Belarusian hackers, “Cyber supporters”.
The hackers assured having “destroyed” 7000 servers of the airline and said they wanted to publish the personal data of all the Russians who have traveled with Aeroflot. The attack was made possible thanks to a lack of computer security from the company, the group said “Cyber supporters” in another statement published later.
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Bélarusse hackers have said that Aeroflot CEO, Sergei Alexandrovski, had facilitated their task with their password unchanged since 2022, and that the airline has used obsolete systems, especially «Windows XP et Windows 2003». The Russian prosecution announced that it has opened an investigation for “Illegitimate access” to information systems, indicating that Aeroflot was the victim of a “Cyberattack”. The Russian Agency for Telecommunications Surveillance Roskomnadzor has not confirmed data leaks, according to the Russian news agency Ria Novosti, nor Aeroflot which qualifies the incident of “IT system failure”.
“Alarming” incident for the Kremlin
The airline indicated that it had canceled 54 flights on Monday, especially from the Chermetievo airport in Moscow, its main base, and “Work currently to restore normal operations as quickly as possible”. “This is not the first flight canceled in July for us”told AFP a passenger, Mikhail, who had already been stuck two days more than expected in Mourmansk, in the Arctic. “Now we are in Moscow and that is another cancellation and no information. It’s sad, it’s impossible to plan business trips ”he regrets.
Air traffic disruptions are regularly involved in Russia in recent months, mainly due to the attacks of Ukrainian drones launched in response to Russian bombing on Ukraine, where the Russian army has been carrying out a large -scale offensive since February 2022. It is however the first incident of this magnitude caused by a cyber attack. The Kremlin tried this incident to him “Quite alarming”. “We will of course clarify the information and wait for an appropriate explanation”Said his spokesperson Dmitri Peskov told journalists.
Ukraine and its Western allies regularly accuse Russia of cyber attacks against computer systems of public and private organizations around the world, accusations rejected by Moscow. Earlier in July, the Europol and Eurojust agencies announced the dismantling of the Prorussian hackers group Noname057 (16), in their own responsible for multiple attacks targeting Ukraine and its allies, which targeted significant infrastructure in Europe.
