Agencies dismiss report claiming KLIA cyberattack disrupted travel

 

Two agencies have denied allegations claiming that a recent cyberattack against the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) led to extensive disruptions to the airport’s operations.

In refuting the accusations published by a news site earlier today, National Cyber Security Agency (Nacsa) chief executive Megat Zuhairy Megat Tajuddin affirmed that there were no disruptions to flight services following the attack on March 23.

“The allegation is not true… MAHB (Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad) has initiated a BCP (business continuity plan) after the attack.

“Passengers were not affected,” Megat told Malaysiakini when contacted, adding that Nacsa’s forensic team is actively working with MAHB to identify the perpetrators behind the attack.

He also reiterated that Nacsa is continuously monitoring and assisting MAHB in the aftermath of the cybersecurity threat.

Free Malaysia Today quoted MAHB’s corporate communications general manager Shukreen Ma as saying that there were no flight disruptions at KLIA and no passengers were stranded at the airport.

“We continue to focus on ensuring that operations are running smoothly,” she said.

‘Inoperative’

In its report, the New Straits Times cited a source as saying that KLIA’s flight information display system, check-in counters and baggage handling procedures were rendered inoperative due to the cyberattack, forcing airlines and airport staff to resort to using manual operations.

Arrival and departure information manually updated on a whiteboard after KLIA cyber attack

The source also said initial findings into the incident suggest that the “prolonged outage” is due to how the cyber intrusion had compromised KLIA’s critical systems.

The situation, the source added, was further compounded by the lack of a robust backup system, which slowed recovery efforts.

Previously, Malaysiakini reported that former Wangsa Maju MP Wee Choo Keong in an X post questioned whether MAHB had been a victim of a cyber attack, alleging there was a system outage at KLIA and KLIA 2.

Wee alleged that check-in counters and baggage handling systems were affected during the reportedly 10-hour outage.

Malaysiakini also found images depicting how flight arrival and display information were manually updated on whiteboards.

Yesterday, in a joint statement, MAHB and Nacsa said a comprehensive investigation was immediately launched to determine the nature and extent of the incident.

They added that relevant authorities - including Nacsa and the Civil Aviation Authority Malaysia (CAAM) - were also notified after the threat was detected on March 23.

The statement, however, did not address Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s remark that the attack included a demand for “10 million dollars”.

Asserting that the demand was part of an attack against MAHB’s digital system, Anwar said the government decided not to concede to the criminals and instead planned to allocate more budget to improve Malaysia’s cybersecurity. - Mkini