Hundreds of SpiceJet passengers in India were stranded on their planes, some for several hours, as the low-cost airline’s operations were disrupted, she said, by an “attempted” cyberattack.
An airline official told AFP on Thursday that flight operations had returned to normal, without giving further details about the incident.
“Some SpiceJet systems experienced an attempted ransomware attack last night which impacted our flight operations,” the airline said simply on Twitter on Wednesday.
The company added that it had “largely brought the situation under control and rectified” but that ongoing delays had forced it to cancel some flights to airports under night curfew.
Many angry passengers, some of whom waited up to five hours on their plane, complained about the airline’s lack of communication.
According to Mudit Shejwar, one of those passengers, the only explanation his flight got was “a down server and a problem with fuel paperwork.”
“What about the damages we are going to suffer because of this delay?” he asked on Twitter, adding that his flight took off five hours late.
Ransomware cyberattacks allow hackers to take control of a system by encrypting all of its data until the victim pays a ransom.
They have become more and more frequent with the exponential increase in commerce, exchanges and online activities.
Last year, the United States offered a $10 million reward to help track down the leaders of the ‘DarkSide’ gang that Washington found responsible for a hack that knocked out one of the world’s largest oil pipelines. from the country.