Japan Airlines (JAL) suffered a cyberattack on Thursday that delayed more than 20 domestic flights, but said it was able to stop the attack and restore its systems hours later. It said there was no impact on flight safety.
JAL said its problems began Thursday morning when the company’s network, which connects internal and external systems, began malfunctioning.
The airline said it was able to determine the cause of the attack as an attempt to overwhelm the network system by transmitting large amounts of data. These attacks flood a system or network with traffic until the target is unable to respond or crashes.
JAL said the attack did not involve a virus or result in a customer data breach. It is said that 24 domestic flights were delayed for more than 30 minutes as of this morning due to the cyber attack.
Sales of tickets for JAL’s domestic and international flights scheduled for departure on Thursday were temporarily suspended, but resumed a few hours later.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a regular news conference Thursday that the Transportation Ministry had instructed JAL to expedite efforts to restore the system and accommodate affected passengers.
Other Japanese airlines, including ANA Holdings, Skymark and Starflyer, were not affected.
TV footage showed large crowds of passengers at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport flocking to the terminal as the attack coincided with the year-end holiday travel season. Offices will be closed starting this weekend for the Lunar New Year holiday, the biggest holiday of the year when millions of people return from cities to their hometowns.
Experts have repeatedly raised concerns about the vulnerabilities of Japan’s cybersecurity, especially as the country strengthens its defense capabilities and cooperates more closely with the United States and other partners with much more stringent cyber defenses. Japan has taken steps, but experts say more needs to be done.
In June, Japan’s space agency said it had been hit by a series of cyberattacks starting in 2023, but that sensitive information related to rockets, satellites and national defense had not been affected. We were investigating to take preventative action. Last year, a port container terminal in Nagoya city suffered a cyber attack, paralyzing operations for three days.
