Cybercriminals set their sights on U.S. airlines
Notorious cybercriminal group 'Scattered Spider' has set its sights on the aviation industry, successfully breaching the computer networks of multiple airlines in the U.S. and Canada, according to the FBI and private experts responding to the hacks.
The hacking hasn't affected airline safety, but it has top cyber executives at major airlines across the United States on alert because of the hacking suspects: A network of young cybercriminals called 'Scattered Spider' who are known for their aggressive efforts to extort or embarrass their victims.
It's a fresh headache for the travel industry as the busy summer travel season kicks into high gear. This is now the third major US business sector, after insurance and retail, to face a flurry of cyberattacks tied to the criminal group.
The hackers target big companies and their IT contractors, 'which means anyone in the airline ecosystem, including trusted vendors and contractors, could be at risk', the FBI said in a statement that named Scattered Spider as the perpetrator of the airline hacks. 'Once inside (a victim's network), Scattered Spider actors steal sensitive data for extortion and often deploy ransomware', the FBI said. The FBI, the statement continued, 'is actively working with aviation and industry partners to address this activity and assist victims.'
Hawaiian Airlines and Canada's WestJet confirmed that they were still assessing the fallout from recent cyberattacks, though the airlines did not name the perpetrators. More victims in the aviation industry could come forward, sources briefed on the investigation said.
WestJet's issues began when the airline said it was responding to a 'cybersecurity incident' that was affecting access 'to some services and software systems', including its app for customers. Both WestJet and Hawaiian Airlines said their operations were unaffected by the hacks.
The lack of impact on operations at the airlines is 'likely a sign of good internal network separations or good business continuity and resiliency planning', said Aakin Patel, the former chief information security officer of Las Vegas' main airport.
It is not just the airlines themselves, but other 'segments of the aviation ecosystem' that are seeing increased cyberattacks, according to Jeffey Troy, the president of the Aviation ISAC, an industry group for sharing cyber threats. 'Our members are keenly alert to attacks from financially motivated attackers and collateral impacts emanating out of geo-political tensions around the world', Troy said.
The fine margins for error in the airline industry were on display recently, when a separate IT outage, apparently unrelated to malicious cyber activity, caused delays for some American Airlines passengers.
The Scattered Spider hacks have mobilised people across the industry to respond. In-house cybersecurity experts at major airlines have been closely monitoring the situation while cybersecurity firms such as Google-owned Mandiant are helping with the recovery and urging airlines to secure their customer service call centres.
One of Scattered Spiders' preferred methods of infiltrating corporations is calling up help desks and pretending to be employees or customers. The technique has been highly effective for hackers to gain access to the networks of big companies. 'Airlines rely heavily on call centres for a lot of their support needs,' said Patel, making them 'a likely target for groups like this'.
Scattered Spider gained attention in September 2023 when they were linked to a pair of multimillion-dollar hacks on Las Vegas casinos and hotels MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment. The hackers tend to pick one sector to target for weeks on end. Recently they were the suspect in a hack of insurance giant Aflac that potentially stole Social Security numbers, insurance claims and health information. Before that, it was the retail sector: The hackers, according to an internal memo, targeted Ahold Delhaize USA, which has the same parent company as the Giant and Food Lion grocery chains.
'The actor's core tactics, techniques, and procedures have remained consistent,' Mandiant chief technology officer Charles Carmakal said in a statement, and that it 'is aware of multiple incidents in the airline and transportation sector' that resemble the operations of Scattered Spider.
Source: CNN
Image Credit: Stock Image
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
43 minutes ago
- The National
How to gain an edge in investing by defying conventional wisdom
High price-to-earnings ratios. Seasonal return adages. Tax rises. A weak (or strong) dollar. What do they have in common? Conventional wisdom claims all are bad for stocks. Most investors accept that unquestioned. Don't. Things 'everyone knows' are very often provably wrong. Getting that right gives you an edge. It isn't hard to do. Never presume common wisdom about what is good or bad for capital markets is correct. See it as a theory to test like a scientist should. Here is your 'laboratory' for doing just that. Little we see is truly unprecedented. So, you can easily test most basic claims against historical data. Many prove false. Example? An ancient market myth argues January's returns predict the full year's. Good January, good year. Bad January, bad year. This is simple to test with historical stock returns. Consider America's S&P 500 index in USD for its long and accurate history. Monthly data begins in 1926. Since then, January and the year were positive 52 times – 53 per cent of all years. Does this 'prove' January's predictive power? No. It simply shows you stocks are positive more often than not historically. The least common occurrence is a positive January preceding a down year – nine times. But a negative January preceded a down year seven times – slightly less often than it preceded an up year, 21 times. Not predictive or far off from a coin flip. Any 'strategy' reliant on cherry-picked data, like this so-called 'January effect', isn't viable. Or consider the widespread belief that high price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios hurt stocks and low P/Es are good. We can disprove this in our market laboratory also. Since 1926, US stocks' average 12-month trailing P/E (price divided by the last 12 months' earnings) is 17.7. Monthly P/Es topped this 476 times through May last year. Over the next 12 months, the S&P 500 fell 139 times and rose 337 times – a 70.8 per cent frequency of gains. The opposite of conventional wisdom. And for the 705 months with below-average P/Es, the next 12 months rose 78.4 per cent of the time. Together, this just shows you, again, that stocks rise much more often than not. Regardless of P/E. That's it. History shows many 'common sense' popular beliefs are false. Tax rises? Not reliably, repeatedly bad for the US, global or any major stock market. Britain lives this now, with stocks up nicely despite an April tax rise. Same with fears around high government budget deficits. Natural disasters. Trade deficits. Endless misperceptions hold for currency swings, too – up or down. Many fear the US dollar's recent 'weakness', claiming it portends the currency's global reserve status ending or that global confidence in America is gone – supposedly boding ill for US stocks. In the US and globally, weak currencies also fan fears of higher import costs fanning domestic inflation. Meanwhile, strong currencies spur endless fretting, too. European nations now fret importing deflation and slow growth as their currencies strengthen. But history shows stocks rarely react – regardless of the dollar or other currency's strength or weakness. Since 1973, when the index measuring the US dollar against a trade-weighted currency basket begins, the greenback weakened in 18 years. Stocks fell with it just two times … and rose 16 times. Now, that doesn't mean a weak currency is automatically bullish. But it certainly isn't bearish – and undercuts common 'wisdom'. Conversely, the dollar strengthened during 33 years since 1973. US stocks rose with it 25 times and fell eight times. All of this simply aligns with stocks' average frequency of returns throughout history. There is no investing strategy to glean here. No, history doesn't repeat perfectly. But investing isn't about certainty, ever. It is about probabilities. And history frames probabilities. If people say Thing X is bad for stocks, but X preceded good returns 70 per cent of the time, you absolutely know there is a high probability X isn't bad. You can't dismiss it, but you can study what else happened during the 30 per cent of history when X seemed bad. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe you find Thing Z was also afoot, so you look at whenever Thing Z happened to see if it is reliably bad. If it is, and you can find a good, economically sound reason for why it would be bad, then you have precious information few others do. Another powerful edge to do better than others will. Even simply proving popular claims aren't true gets you well ahead. Markets pre-price widely known information, including popular beliefs and myths. When you can invest knowing common wisdom is wrong, opportunities abound to ride stocks' positive surprise.
Zawya
an hour ago
- Zawya
International passenger growth hits 5% in May: IATA
GENEVA: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for May 2025 global passenger demand. Total demand, measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), was up 5.0% compared to May 2024. Total capacity, measured in available seat kilometers (ASK), was also up 5.0% year-on-year. The May load factor was 83.4% (-0.1 ppt compared to May 2024). International demand rose 6.7% compared to May 2024. Capacity was up 6.4% year-on-year, and the load factor was 83.2% (+0.2 ppt compared to May 2024). This is a record load factor on international flights for May. Domestic demand increased 2.1% compared to May 2024. Capacity was up 2.8% year-on-year. The load factor was 83.7% (-0.5 ppt compared to May 2024). 'Air travel demand growth was uneven in May. Globally, the industry reported 5% growth with Asia-Pacific taking the lead at 9.4%. The outlier was North America which reported a 0.5% decline, led by a 1.7% fall in the US domestic market. Severe disruptions in the Middle East in late June remind us that geopolitical instability remains a challenge in some regions as airlines maintain safe operations with minimal passenger inconvenience,'' said Willie Walsh, IATA's Director General. The impact of such instability on oil prices—which remained low throughout May—is also a critical factor to monitor. Importantly, consumer confidence appears to be strong with forward bookings for the peak Northern summer travel season, giving good reason for optimism,' Walsh added.
Zawya
an hour ago
- Zawya
Gold rises on weaker dollar, tariff uncertainty before deadline
Gold rose on Tuesday, supported by a weaker dollar and heightened uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies ahead of the July 9 deadline, driving investors toward safe-haven assets. Spot gold was up 0.4% at $3,315.26 per ounce, as of 0229 GMT, while U.S. gold futures rose 0.6% to $3,326.50. "Weaker dollar and concerns about the impact if Trump's tariff deadline is not extended are supporting gold at the moment," said Nicholas Frappell, global head of institutional markets at ABC Refinery. The U.S. dollar index fell 0.1% to a more than three-year low, making bullion more affordable for holders of other currencies. Trump expressed frustration with U.S.-Japan trade negotiations on Monday as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that countries could be notified of sharply higher tariffs, as a July 9 deadline approaches despite good-faith negotiations. Meanwhile, Trump continued to press the Federal Reserve on Monday to ease monetary policy, sending Fed Chair Jerome Powell a list of global central bank interest rates, annotated with handwritten comments saying U.S. rates should be between Japan's 0.5% and Denmark's 1.75%. "I think (Trump's call to lower interest rates) is also having an impact on the market although I am a bit surprised that the market is that optimistic about rate cuts," Frappell said. Bessent said the administration is considering using the next expected Fed Board of Governors vacancy in early 2026 to appoint a successor to Powell. Investors are closely monitoring a series of U.S. labour market reports in this holiday-shortened trading week, culminating in Thursday's government payrolls data, for insights into the Fed's monetary policy direction. The market is currently anticipating a 67-basis-point rate cut beginning in September. Spot silver fell 0.8% to $35.80 per ounce, platinum was down 0.7% to $1,343.61, while palladium gained 0.9% to $1,107.25. (Reporting by Anmol Choubey in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair and Rashmi Aich)
