Russian flag carrier cancels over 40 flights as hacker group claims cyberattack

Russia’s flag carrier Aeroflot canceled on Monday over 40 flights after what it called information failure.

The cancellations were announced by the press service of the airline headquartered at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, which did not provide a reason behind the failure of its information systems or how long it would take to resolve the issue.

“Passengers of cancelled flights have the following options: refund or reissue for flights in the next 10 days,” the statement said, adding that a team of specialists is currently working to restore the normal operation of its services.

Most flights cancelled were domestic, but also included some heading to Armenia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

The prosecutor general's office said the reason behind the failure in Aeroflot's information system is a "hacker attack," and that a criminal case was registered.

A statement on Telegram from a hacker group calling itself Silent Crow took responsibility for the attack, claiming it "completely destroyed" the airline’s internal IT infrastructure following a “long-term and large-scale operation.”

“For a year, we were inside their corporate network, methodically developing access, going deep into the very core of the infrastructure,” the statement said.

The group claimed it destroyed about 7,000 servers, allegedly obtaining 22 TB of information.

It also threatened to shortly publish “personal data of all Russians who have ever flown with Aeroflot.”

Anadolu could not immediately verify the authenticity of the statement, while Aeroflot did not comment on the claims.