Japan Airlines hit by cyber attack, delaying some of its flights

Tokyo (Team Newsbuddy): Japan Airlines reported a cyber attack on Thursday which it said may affect domestic and international flights, but later announced it had identified and resolved the cause.

At least nine domestic flights of Japan Airlines (JAL), the country’s second-largest airline after All Nippon Airways (ANA), were delayed, local media reported.

“We have identified and resolved the cause of the problem. We are checking the system recovery status,” JAL said in a post on social media platform X.

“Sale of both domestic and international flights departing today has been suspended. We apologize for any inconvenience,” the post said.

Earlier on Thursday, a JAL spokeswoman told AFP the company had been hit by a cyber attack, warning that “delays and cancellations are likely”.

JAL said in an ex-post that the network problem had been occurring since about 7:24 am on Thursday (2224 GMT on Wednesday), which could affect domestic and international flights.

But the cause of the failure was known by 8:56 am, it also said.
JAL is the latest Japanese firm to be hit by a cyber attack.

Japan’s space agency JAXA said in 2023 that it was possibly hit by a cyberattack by unknown entities, but no sensitive information about rockets or satellites was obtained.

That same year, Nagoya Port, one of Japan’s busiest ports, was hit by a ransomware attack that was blamed on Russia-based cybercrime outfit LockBit.

Japan’s National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) – the agency responsible for defending against cyber attacks – was reportedly infiltrated by hackers for nine months in 2023.