On Sunday unknown cyber attackers breached the flight planning computers of Polish carrier LOT at Warsaw’s Chopin International Airport, prompting LOT to cancel 10 flights. At this time, it seems as though the attack targeted the ground-based computers of LOT, including dispatch computers, rendering them temporarily unusable. LOT reports that its computers are once again functional.
The cyber attack is the first we know of against an airline’s flight planning computers, though last month a cyber security researcher flying on a United Airlines flight from Denver to Syracuse tweeted that he thought he controlled the aircraft’s EICAS (the crew alerting system) through remote computer access while in flight. Chris Roberts, founder of One World Labs, a computer security firm, was questioned by the FBI afterward but no charges were filed.
