Polish LOT aeroplanes grounded by computer hack

[MartinW 0]

Some flights operated by Poland's national airline, LOT, were grounded on Sunday after hackers attacked its computer system.

The hacking attack targeted computers issuing flight plans at Warsaw's Okecie airport.

More than 1,400 passengers were affected, with 10 flights cancelled and another 12 delayed.

Services were getting back to normal on Sunday evening. The attack is now being investigated by airline authorities.

Flights to Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Copenhagen and Polish cities were affected, although LOT stressed that the glitch did not affect the airport or aeroplanes that were already in the air.

"We're using state-of-the-art computer systems, so this could potentially be a threat to others in the industry," said LOT spokesman Adrian Kubicki.

The source of the hack is not yet known.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33219276

[brett 2,316]

It hope they catch these scoundrels, I always wondered how many polish people it takes to hack a computer system.

 

Luckily they hacked sitting aircraft but it's still just plan wrong. I bet this will have the aircraft companies scurrying though and might help put some more light on the issue.

 

 

[stu7708 244]

Given some previous discussions on this topic I think it's very important to point out that the planes were not hacked, but rather systems on the ground.

 

It doesn't make it any less serious, but still an important distinction to make given the allegations that it's possible to hack the computer systems of the actual aircrafts in order to gain control over them.

 

Let's just say that the reports in Swedish media wasn't very clear on this point, specially if you only browsed the headlines and didn't read the article closely.

[MartinW 0]

Yes that's correct. This is nothing to do with aircraft systems being hacked. It was ground based computers issuing flight plans that were hacked. 1400 passengers effected.

 

Their systems were good, state of the art, so it is a wake up call to other airliners that may suffer as a result of similar vulnerabilities.

 

Computer systems are fantastic things, but they do bring with them a multitude of creative ways nefarious groups can cause havoc.

 

And it doesn't stop at airlines of course. Almost everything is computer controlled these days, from the food that's delivered to the supermarkets to  vital services like power and water supply.

 

We are vulnerable. Mass coronal ejections, hackers, anything that impacts the computer systems we rely on is a threat.