Pro-Ukrainian hackers take credit for attack that snarls Russian flight travel

Russia’s biggest airline cancelled dozens of flights on Monday following a failure of the state-owned company’s IT systems and, according to a Russian lawmaker and pro-Ukrainian hackers, was the result of a cyberattack, it was widely reported.

The airline, Aeroflot, said it cancelled about 40 flights following a “technical failure.” An online departure board for Sheremetyevo airport showed dozens of others were delayed. The cancellations and delays hobbled traffic throughout Russia and left travelers stranded at airports. The affected routes were mostly within Russia but also included routes to Belarusian capital Minsk and Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

“The damage is strategic”

Russian prosecutors confirmed to Reuters that the disruption was caused by a hack and have opened a criminal investigation into it. Russian lawmakers also hinted a cyberattack was the cause of the outage, with one of them, Anton Gorelkin, saying Russia was under digital attack, possibly at the hands of hacktivists with help from unfriendly states.

Two pro-Ukrainian hacker groups, meanwhile, took credit for the attack. Silent Crow, one of the groups, said on Telegram that its members copied the airline's entire database of flight history, audio recordings, internal calls, and surveillance data.

“Restoration will likely require tens of millions of dollars,” the group claimed. “The damage is strategic.”

Silent Crow and the other group, named Belarusian Cyberpartisans, said the cyberattack was the result of a yearlong operation that had deeply penetrated Aeroflot's network, destroyed 7,000 servers, and gained control over the personal computers of employees, including senior managers.