Japan Airlines hit by cyberattack, flights delayed

Japan Airlines has reported a cyberattack that caused delays to domestic and international flights but later said it had found and addressed the cause.

Public broadcaster NHK said on Thursday that problems with the airline's baggage check-in system delayed more than a dozen flights at several Japanese airports, but there were no mass cancellations or major disruptions.

Japan Airlines (JAL) is the country's second-biggest airline after All Nippon Airways (ANA).

"We identified and addressed the cause of the issue. We are checking the system recovery status," JAL said in a post on social media platform X.

"Sales for both domestic and international flights departing today have been suspended. We apologise for any inconvenience caused," the post said.

Earlier Thursday, a JAL spokeswoman told AFP the company had been subjected to a cyberattack.

Network disruption began at 2224 GMT Wednesday, JAL said in a statement.

"Then we temporarily isolated the router, a device for exchanging data between networks that was causing the disruption", it added.

JAL shares fell as much as 2.5 percent in morning trade after the news emerged, before recovering slightly.

Recent cyberattacks

The airline is just the latest Japanese firm to be hit by a cyberattack.

Japan's space agency JAXA said in 2023 that it was likely penetrated by a cyberattack by unknown entities, but no sensitive information about rockets or satellites was accessed.

The same year, Nagoya Port, one of Japan's busiest, was crippled by a ransomware attack that was blamed on Lockbit, a Russia-based cybercrime organisation.

Japan's National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC) the agency responsible for defences against cyberattacks was itself reportedly infiltrated by hackers in 2023 for as long as nine months.

In 2022, the government said a cyberattack was behind the disruption at a Toyota supplier that forced the top-selling automaker to halt operations at domestic plants for a day.

More recently, the popular Japanese video-sharing website Niconico suspended its services in June because it was under a large-scale cyberattack, its operator said.