The world’s largest aircraft rental company, which counts Air France, easyJet and British Airways among its clients, AerCap said on Monday that it had suffered a computer hack.
AerCap Holdings confirmed, Monday January 22, 2024, that it had been attacked and trapped by a ransomware-type incident, as we learned Reuters. No information is circulating regarding the attack suffered by this world heavyweight in aeronautics, of Dutch origin. But Clubic found traces of its possible authors.
A company well established in the airline sector
Based in Amsterdam, the AerCap company may be unknown to the general public, but it is none other than the most powerful aircraft lessor in the world. To date, the company owns or offers the services of 1,700 aircraft, 1,000 engines and also 300 helicopters.
Among the company’s customers, we find companies such as Air France, Lufthansa, British Airways, easyJet, Swiss, Vueling, Qatar Airways, Emirates, American Airlines, Delta, and United. Now based in Ireland, AerCap has provided rare information on the attack.
The pirate group promises to unpack everything within two weeks
The company confirmed that it was the victim of ransomware on January 17, 2024. Since then, it has been able to resume the “ Total control » of its computer systems, and indicates that it has not suffered “ no financial loss linked to this incident “. Its customers, the airlines, are in theory not directly impacted.
According to our information, this is the group slug who would be the author of this cyberattack. On its page, the relatively unknown collective would have interests in attacking aeronautics companies. This would not be his first victim in this sector.
What we know is that slug reportedly holds 1 TB (1,000 GB) of data from AerCap, and promises to release 5 GB of information after 3 days, then 30 GB after a week. If the hackers follow through with their plan and don’t get paid, they could release the whole thing after ” two weeks “. It is not yet clear what data they were able to access.
Sources: Clubic, Reuters
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