TOKYO: Japan Airlines reported a cyberattack yesterday that caused delays to domestic and international flights but later said it had found and addressed the cause.
The airline, Japan’s second biggest after All Nippon Airways (ANA), said 24 domestic flights had been delayed by more than half an hour.
Public broadcaster NHK said problems with the airline’s baggage check-in system had caused delays at several Japanese airports but no major disruption was reported.
“We identified and addressed the cause of the issue. We are checking the system recovery status,” Japan Airlines (JAL) said in a post on social media platform X.
“Sales for both domestic and international flights departing today have been suspended. We apologise for any inconvenience caused,” the post said.
A JAL spokeswoman told AFP earlier the company had been subjected to a cyberattack.
Japanese media said it may have been a so-called DDoS attack aimed at overwhelming and disrupting a website or server.
Network disruption began at 7.24 am yesterday (local time), JAL said in a statement, adding that there was no impact on the safety of its operations.
Then “at 8.56 am, we temporarily isolated the router (a device for exchanging data between networks) that was causing the disruption”, it said.
JAL shares fell as much as 2.5 per cent in morning trade after the news emerged, before recovering slightly.
The airline is just the latest Japanese firm to be hit by a cyberattack.
Japan’s space agency JAXA was targeted in 2023, although no sensitive information about rockets or satellites was accessed.
The same year one of Japan’s busiest ports was hit by a ransomware attack blamed on the Russia-based Lockbit group.
In 2022, a cyberattack at a Toyota supplier forced the top-selling automaker to halt operations at domestic plants.
More recently, the popular Japanese video-sharing website Niconico came under a large cyberattack in June. – AFP
