MOSCOW, July 29 (Reuters) - Russian airline Aeroflot
cancelled dozens more flights on Tuesday but said it
had now stabilised its schedule after a major cyberattack a day
earlier.
Two pro-Ukraine hacking groups claimed on Monday to have
carried out a year-long operation to penetrate Aeroflot's
network. They said they had crippled 7,000 servers, extracted
data on passengers and employees and gained control over the
personal computers of staff, including senior managers.
The Interfax news agency said Aeroflot had cancelled 59
round-trip flights from Moscow on Monday out of a planned 260.
It said that a further 22 flights out of Moscow and 31 into the
capital were cancelled on Tuesday.
Aeroflot's online timetable showed that all but one of
the 22 cancelled flights out of Moscow on Tuesday had been due
to leave before 10 a.m. Moscow time (0700 GMT), but the schedule
for the rest of the day appeared largely unaffected.
"As of today, 93% of flights from Moscow and back are
planned to be operated according to the original schedule (216
return flights out of 233)," the company said.
"Until 10:00, the company carried out selective flight
cancellations, after which Aeroflot's own flight program
stabilised."
Apart from the many cancellations, Monday's attack
caused heavy delays to air travel across the world's biggest
country and drew anger from affected passengers.
Responsibility was claimed by the Belarusian Cyber
Partisans, a long-established group that opposes President
Alexander Lukashenko, and by a more shadowy and recent hacking
outfit that calls itself Silent Crow.
Russian lawmakers said the cyberattack was a wake-up
call and that investigators should focus not only on the
perpetrators but on those who had allowed it to happen.