North American airlines targeted by cyber attacks

At least two North American airlines have recently been victims of criminal hackers while cybersecurity companies warn that a notorious cybercriminal group aims at the aviation industry.

Westjet and Hawaii Airlines both declared in June statements that they responded to the cyber attacks.

American Airlines also experienced a technological problem on Friday, although it is not clear if it was linked or caused in any way by pirates.

“A technological problem affects the connectivity of some of our systems and we work with our partners to fully solve the problem,” a spokesperson for American Airlines said in a statement. “Although we have delays accordingly, we have not canceled any flight at the moment.”

Cybersecurity companies that work directly with companies struck by pirates generally refrain from talking about specific victims, citing non-disclosure agreements. But both google and Palo Alto networks said on Friday that they had observed a particularly effective cybercriminal group, nicknamed Sparse Spider by the cybersecurity industry, which tries to hack the companies involved in aviation.

SPATTERED SPIDER is a group of young people of youth, mainly men who are Extremely able to speak gentle Their path in access to sensitive computer in large companies. From there, they often give this access to external cybercriminals which install ransomware – malicious software that locks computers, making them inoperable – then require an extortion.

The group was linked to attacks Casinos de Las Vegas in 2023 and British department stores Earlier this year. After Google warned that Spander Spider was targeting American retailers, a cyber attack hindered a Whole Foods top supplierleading to empty shelves across the country.

Charles Carmakal, Mandiant’s technology director, the Google Cloud security company, said in an email declared that it followed “several incidents in the airline and transportation sector” where Sported Spider was interrupted.

“We are still working on the attribution and analysis, but given the habit of this actor to focus on a single sector, we suggest that industry immediately takes measures to harden systems,” he said.

Details on the effects of airline attacks are always rare.

A Westjet spokesperson told NBC News in an email that the company had noticed that it had been hacked on June 13 and had made “significant progress” to resolve it. Hawaiian Airlines said in a Friday deposit With the Securities and Exchange Commission that she discovered on Monday that she had been hacked and that “flights are currently working safely and as planned”.

None of the two companies answered questions about whether flights had been canceled or delayed due to the attacks.