Japan Airlines reports cyberattack, ticket ‘sales suspended for domestic, international flights’

Japan Airlines (JAL) reported a cyberattack early Thursday (December 26), causing delays to both domestic and international flights.

"A system malfunction has been occurring in the network equipment that connects the company and its customers since 7:24 a.m. today. This is expected to affect both domestic and international flights," the airlines posted on X on Thursday.

In another post, Japan Airlines said it identified “the cause of the problem at 8:56 and took action.”

'We are currently checking the system recovery status," the Japan Airlines said.

It informed that the "[ticket] sales have been suspended for both domestic and international flights departing today."

"We apologize for any inconvenience caused," the post read.

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

Earlier Thursday, a JAL spokeswoman told AFP the company had been subjected to a cyberattack. “Network disruption began at 7:24 am on Thursday (2224 GMT Wednesday),” JAL said in a statement.

Then, “at 8:56 am, we temporarily isolated the router (a device for exchanging data between networks) that was causing the disruption,” it added.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that problems with the airline's baggage check-in system had delayed more than a dozen flights at several Japanese airports. It, however, mentioned there were no mass cancellations or major disruptions.

JAL shares fell as much as 2.5 per cent in morning trade after the news emerged before recovering slightly, AFP reported.

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

Japan's space agency JAXA said in 2023 that it was likely penetrated by a cyber attack 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 caused disruption at a Toyota supplier, forcing 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.

(With inputs from agencies)