Russian Aviation agency switched to paper documents due to a hacker attack

Russian Aviation and paper workflow

The media, citing their own sources, report that at the end of last week, Russian Aviation agency suffered from a hacker attack, after which 65 TB of data was erased and it was necessary to temporarily switch to paper workflow.

The Aviatorshchina Telegram channel was the first to report the attack, which wrote that as a result of a hacker attack, Russian Aviation lost files on servers and all documents.

The entire document flow, emails, files on the servers disappeared, now the search for the register of aircraft and aviation personnel is underway, the system of public services has been removed. All incoming and outgoing letters for 1.5 years were lost. We don’t know how to work.said Aviatorshchina channel’s own source.

It was reported that the attack allegedly occurred due to poor performance of contractual obligations by InfAvia LLC, which operates the IT infrastructure of the Federal Air Transport Agency.

Alexander Neradko
Alexander Neradko

The Federal Air Transport Agency does not have backup copies, “because the Ministry of Finance did not allocate money for this,” the source of the Telegram channel claims.

The channel also published a screenshot of a message from the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, Alexander Neradko, telling that due to the lack of access to the Internet and a failure in the electronic document management system, the department is temporarily switching to paper document management, courier mail and Russian Post.

The attack was also commented on in the Anonymous group.

Powerful cyber attack on Russia’s Civil Aviation Authority servers: no more data nor back-up. In total, about 65 terabytes of data was erased.the hackers tweeted.

Recall that Anonymous hackers declared war on the Russian government.

The Kommersant publication writes that the Federal Air Transport Agency did not respond to their requests, but two sources close to the service confirmed the existence of problems and the fact of a hacker attack. They specified that specialists are now working on restoring access to the servers.

Interestingly, the fact of the attack was indirectly confirmed by the head of Russian Aviation, Alexander Neradko, although he denies the loss of terabytes of data and the transition to paper workflow. In an interview with MK journalists, Neradko said:

Now there are a huge number of federal executive bodies, many companies, both with state participation and without state participation, are subject to a large number of DDoS attacks. We are no exception. We have to work on protecting from them. The last attack was also repelled.Everything is calm, everything is working as planned. I do not think that this requires any increased attention from the media.

We also wrote that Hacker groups split up: some of them support Russia, others Ukraine.

By Vladimir Krasnogolovy

Vladimir is a technical specialist who loves giving qualified advices and tips on GridinSoft's products. He's available 24/7 to assist you in any question regarding internet security.

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