14 DAY TRIAL // Polish airline LOT faced a severe IT attack this past Sunday when hackers managed to disrupt a computer tasked with scheduling outgoing flights.
The attack took place at Warsaw's Frederic Chopin Airport, started around 4 PM and lasted for five hours, during which time ten national and international flights were canceled, affecting around 1,400 passengers.
In a statement on the company's website, a LOT representative said, "Today afternoon LOT encountered IT attack, that affected our ground operation systems. As a result we’re not able to create flight plans and outbound flights from Warsaw are not able to depart."
At no point were airplane computers under threat
The same statement continued by reassuring customers and the general public that there was no threat or danger to the airplanes themselves, "We’d like to underline, that it [the attack] has no influence on plane systems. Aircrafts, that are already airborne will continue their flights. Planes with flight plans already filed will return to Warsaw normally."
LOT eventually got the issue under control, and all affected passengers were rerouted to their destinations through other flights or booked into a hotel if they needed to stay the night.
There are no details on the group which carried out the attack
Polish officials were immediately called on the scene, and an official investigation was officially launched into the case.
There is currently no information on who carried out the attack, and no online hacker group has claimed it yet.
The attack LOT faced was also the first of its kind, and is surely going to spark another set of conversations about the issue of airport IT security and the dangers of flying in today's digital world.
To this day, there are no cases where hackers accessed cockpit controls, but security researchers and government agencies have issued alerts in the past about vulnerabilities found within in-flight entertainment systems.