A pro-Ukraine hacker group claims to have carried out a major cyberattack on Russia’s biggest airline, Aeroflot. Silent Crow has claimed responsibility for the attack on Aeroflot’s IT infrastructure, which caused the airline to cancel dozens of flights on Monday.
Aeroflot, which is under Western sanctions due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, said it had suffered a “failure” in its information systems but did not provide additional information on the cause of the issue. Silent Crow alleged it carried out a cyberattack, which was a year in the making, with a Belarusian opposition hacktivist group called the Cyber Partisans BY. In a post on Telegram, Silent Crow said: “For a year, we were inside their corporate network, methodically developing access, going deep into the very core of the infrastructure.”
The group claims to have destroyed Aeroflot’s IT infrastructure, including 7,000 physical and virtual servers, and gained access to 20 terabytes of data, The Kyiv Independent reports.
This has not been independently verified, and the group did not provide any evidence of its claims.
Aeroflot, Russia’s national carrier, said it had cancelled more than 40 flights following the IT “failure”, without saying how long it would take to be resolved.
This included journeys to airports across Russia, plus the capital of Belarus, Minsk, and the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, the Reuters news agency reported.
Aeroflot has not responded to the hacking claims and said specialists were working to “minimise the impact on the flight schedule and to restore normal service operations”.
There were reportedly scenes of chaos at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after Aeroflot had urged passengers whose flights had been cancelled to collect their checked-in luggage and leave.
Silent Crow also claimed the attack was a message to the Kremlin’s intelligence and cybersecurity agencies, according to reports.
“You are incapable of protecting even your most critical infrastructure,” the hackers said.
“To all members of the repressive apparatus — your digital security is meaningless. You’ve long been under observation.”
The group also threatened to begin releasing the personal details of “all Russians who have ever flown Aeroflot”.
Its statement concluded: “Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!”
Reuters reports that Silent Crow earlier this year claimed responsibility for an attack on a Russian real estate database.