State-owned LOT Polish Airlines is blaming a denial-of-service attack against the airline’s flight-plan systems as the reason the airline was forced to ground 10 flights and delay 12 other flights – temporarily grounding 1,400 passengers at Warsaw Chopin Airport.
The company says that the delays and cancellations were caused by a cyber-attack intended to disrupt the airline’s ability to issue flight paths. According to LOT spokesman Biuro Prasowe, “LOT became the object of a deliberate attack on the over-ground terrestrial telecommunication network. The attack was aimed at blocking our network and caused [us to lose the] ability to issue flight plans – documents required for each crew to depart.”
However, Prasowe noted that aircraft and passengers were never in any danger because “the aircraft which took off before the attack could continue their journey without any disruptions. We would like to highlight that passengers’ safety was never at risk. All the sensitive data always was – and still is – safe within our database.”