Warsaw: Cyber-attacks are an industry-wide problem that could confront any carrier at any time, the chief executive of Polish flagship airline LOT said on Monday.
Around 1,400 LOT passengers were grounded at Warsaw’s Frederic Chopin airport on Sunday after hackers attacked the airline’s ground computer systems used to issue flight plans.
“This is an industry problem on a much wider scale, and for sure we have to give it more attention, if it can be given more attention,” Sebastian Mikosz told a news conference.
“I expect it can happen to anyone anytime.”
LOT airline has been forced to cancel around 10 foreign and domestic flights after hackers attacked its computers.
Airline spokesman Adrian Kubicki said the hacker attack temporarily paralysed LOT’s computers, disrupting the processing of passengers for the flights.
During the disruption, the company was unable to plan flights and planes couldn’t take off.
The systems on the planes were safe and those with planned routes were able to return to the Polish capital, according to LOT’s website.
“This is the first attack of its kind,” LOT Kubicki told TVN 24 television.
The airline said in a statement on its website that the “IT attack” meant it was unable to create flight plans and flights were not able to depart from Warsaw.
Poland’s security agencies were investigating the attack.
“We are secure,” Kubicki said. “We know the mechanism and if it was to happen again we’re ready to react quickly.”
He said some 1,400 passengers, scheduled to fly to Hamburg, Duesseldorf, Copenhagen and domestic destinations, were affected by the cancellations.
The problem was eventually solved and flights scheduled to depart later Sunday could leave as planned. A commission will investigate the source of the attack, Kubicki said.
Concerns around aviation and hacking are on the rise, compounded by a new wave of airliners connected to the internet which have prompted fears that cyber terrorists could take control of planes remotely.
In December last year the International Civil Aviation Organisation said cyber crime was a serious threat to safety in the skies, vowing to set up a “security culture” protecting travellers against any catastrophic incident.
A US report in April warned that hackers could exploit in-flight entertainment systems to fatally sabotage cockpit electronics.
The report by an investigative arm of the US Congress came just weeks after a co-pilot crashed his Germanwings A320 into the French Alps, killing all 150 on board, and prompting talk of airliners one day being 100 percent automated.
In May a security researcher claimed he had hacked the controls of a United Airlines jetliner from its entertainment system.
The FBI is investigating the claim by Chris Roberts of One World Labs that he briefly took control of a United aircraft from his passenger seat by hacking into the in-flight entertainment network.
United cast doubt on the claims, with its CEO telling a US Senate hearing that there were “clear firewalls” between the systems, but admitting that the matter was “of great concern to us” and that the airline was cooperating with the FBI investigation.
