Russia's Aeroflot cancels dozens of flights after alleged cyberattack by pro-Ukraine hackers
Aeroflot, Russia's largest airline, reported a massive malfunction in its information system on July 28, forcing the cancellation of dozens of flights to and from Moscow after an alleged cyberattack.
"There has been a failure in the airline's information systems. Service disruptions are possible," the Russian flag carrier said on Telegram without clarifying the cause of the disruptions.
A pro-Ukrainian hacker group named Silent Crow has claimed responsibility for a large-scale attack on Aeroflot's IT infrastructure, allegedly conducted in cooperation with the Belarusian opposition hacktivist group, the Cyber Partisans BY.
"For a year, we were inside their corporate network, methodically developing access, going deep into the very core of the infrastructure," the hackers claimed on their Telegram channel.
The hacker group claimed to have completely destroyed the company's IT infrastructure, including 7,000 physical and virtual servers, and gained access to 20 terabytes of data.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims.
Aeroflot announced that nearly 50 flights to and from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, including connections to Astrakhan, Grozny, Kaliningrad, Minsk, Yerevan, and elsewhere, were canceled due to the malfunction.
"At present, a team of specialists is working to minimize the risks to the flight operation schedule and to restore normal service operations as quickly as possible," the company said.
Rossiya and Pobeda airlines, which are part of the same group as Aeroflot, have not reported any disruptions.
Silent Crow has claimed responsibility for several hacking attacks in the past, including the one targeting Russia's state cadastre and cartography agency in January.
Kyiv has not commented on the latest hack. Both Russia and Ukraine have widely used cyberattacks to target government institutions and key businesses during the full-scale war.
