Japan Airlines Recovers from Major Cyberattack

DALLAS — Japan Airlines (JL) restored its systems following a cyberattack that disrupted operations on December 26, 2024. 

The incident, which began at 7:24 AM local time, forced the airline to suspend ticket sales temporarily and caused delays for over 24 domestic flights, each exceeding 30 minutes.

The disruption, suspected to be a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, affected both internal and external systems. However, JL confirmed no customer data was compromised, and no computer viruses were detected. The airline's competitor, ANA Holdings (NH), reported no impact on its systems.

The timing of the attack coincided with Japan's New Year holiday season, a peak travel period, resulting in crowds of stranded travelers at Tokyo's Haneda airport (HND). Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi instructed the transport ministry to prioritize system restoration and passenger accommodation.

The Japanese flag carrier sent via a tweet at 5:45 AM EST a notice regarding its network equipment malfunction [as of 19:40 local time]:

“There was a system malfunction with our network equipment today, but it has now been resolved. As of now, flights for tomorrow, December 27th, are scheduled to operate as normal. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

The JL incident comes on the heels of a separate technical issue that affected American Airlines (AA) on Christmas Eve, which grounded all AA flights for an hour.

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