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Russian flag carrier Aeroflot cancelled dozens of flights on Monday after a pro-Ukrainian hacker group claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the airline’s systems.
Aeroflot said it was experiencing service disruptions to all of its electronic systems and had to adjust flight schedules.
The airline gave no further details about the cyberattack or how long it would take to restore services but did warn passengers of delays and cancellations.
“Customers may encounter issues when accessing our services,” the airline said in a statement.
“We kindly ask passengers to monitor real-time updates on airport websites, information displays, and public announcements across the airline’s route network.”
The airline said its technical teams were “actively working to minimise the impact on flight operations and restore all services to normal as quickly as possible.”
By late Monday morning, at least 42 mostly domestic Aeroflot flights had been cancelled, according to online flight trackers.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the attack was “quite alarming” and the Russian Prosecutor General confirmed Aeroflot’s problems were the result of a cyberattack. A criminal investigation has been opened, the office said.
A hacking group calling itself Silent Crow claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had been done together with a Belarusian group called Cyberpartisans BY.
Silent Crow said the attack was directly linked to Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!” the group said in a statement.
The group claimed to have destroyed around 7,000 Aeroflot servers, accessed flight history databases and compromised critical corporate systems.
Silent Crow also threatened to start releasing “the personal data of all Russians who have ever flown Aeroflot.”
