Hackers grounded 10 flights by Polish airline LOT and delayed another 12 on Sunday when they managed to access the computer system responsible for issuing flight plans.
More than 1,400 passengers were affected by the hack which targeted flights at Warsaw's Chopin Airport. Airline spokesman Adrian Kubicki said the hacker attack temporarily paralyzed LOT's computers at Warsaw's Frederic Chopin airport on Sunday, disrupting the processing of passengers for the flights.
Due to the failure of LOT Polish Airlines computer system a lot of flights were canceled today. Please contact the airline for details— Chopin Airport, WAW (@ChopinAirport) June 21, 2015
In a press release, the airline said that the airport itself wasn't affected, nor were flights already in the air impacted by the breach. "We're using state-of-the-art computer systems, so this could potentially be a threat to others in the industry," said Kubicik.
Later, the airline issued the following statement:
The situation after the IT attack on our ground operation system is already under control. We are working on restoring the regularity as soon as possible. Our operating center is already preparing flight plans. We will try to ensure that the largest number of passengers are informed and continue commenced journeys.
Besides several domestic destinations, flights to Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Copenhagen were also disrupted.
The Associated Press contributed to this report