Impact of Japan Airlines cyberattack downplayed amid recovery

Operations at Japan Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, have resumed after the successful restoration of systems as a result of a distributed denial-of-service attack on Thursday, which led to the interruption of some flights, same-day departure ticket sales, and other services, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Additional details have been limited but JAL emphasized that it did not suffer from any customer data breach or computer viruses as a result of the intrusion, which also did not affect flight safety. JAL earlier disclosed the immediate takedown of the impacted system upon detection of the attack.

The attack against JAL and other unrelated issues were reported by Japanese public broadcaster NHK to have resulted in the deferral of over 40 flights across various Japanese airports.

Such a development comes amid persistent cyberattacks against the global airline sector, with Mexican airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte claimed to be compromised by the RansomHub operation in October and German air traffic control agency Deutsche Flugsicherung impacted by a suspected APT28 intrusion in September.