This is getting disturbing.
And scary.
The Allied Pilots Association (APA), the union for pilots of
American Airlines, has fallen victim to a cyber-attack
in which the personal and private data of some members may have been
infiltrated.
The news comes just two months after Caesars
Palace and the MGM in Las Vegas were both infiltrated by hackers, and the
private data of some guests was stolen.
In this instance, the website for the pilot’s union was
attacked and taken down, and it might have resulted in some sensitive
information of some of the pilots being exposed. The association is entirely
separate from American Airlines, and there is no indication that the carrier
was attacked.
The union represents more than 15,000 pilots and said it
first learned of the attacks on October 30 when it could not access either its
public website or personal member pages.
“On October 30, we experienced a cybersecurity incident,”
the union confirmed last week. “Upon discovery of the incident, we immediately
took steps to secure our network. Our IT team, with the support of outside
experts, continues to work nonstop to restore our systems. We are pleased to
report that our restoration efforts are progressing, and we will soon be able
to begin to bring back some of our online services.”
The email server for the Allied Pilots Association was also
taken down.
The APA is working with its own IT team and with several
outside cybersecurity experts to determine the extent of what was compromised.
“The restoration of those systems has entailed a methodical
and time-consuming process for our IT team and outside experts,” the union
warned.
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