Japan Airlines (JAL) experienced a cyberattack on Thursday that forced the temporary suspension of ticket sales and caused delays to multiple domestic flights during the busy year-end holiday season.
The attack began early Thursday morning at 7:24 AM when JAL's network connecting internal and external systems started malfunctioning. The airline identified the incident as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, where attackers attempted to overwhelm the systems with massive amounts of data traffic.
The disruption led to delays exceeding 30 minutes for 24 domestic flights and temporarily halted ticket sales for both domestic and international flights scheduled to depart that day. The airline confirmed that no customer data was compromised and flight safety remained unaffected throughout the incident.
While JAL worked to restore its systems, crowds of passengers gathered at Tokyo's Haneda airport during what is traditionally one of Japan's busiest travel periods, as offices close for the New Year holidays.
Other major Japanese carriers, including ANA Holdings, Skymark Airlines, and Star Flyer, were not impacted by the cyber incident. However, Japan Post Co. reported that mail and parcel deliveries were affected due to the flight disruptions.
The Japanese government, through Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, instructed JAL to expedite system restoration efforts and provide appropriate support to affected passengers.
This incident highlights ongoing concerns about cybersecurity vulnerabilities in Japan's infrastructure, particularly as the country strengthens its defense capabilities and international partnerships. Earlier this year, Japan's space agency and a container terminal in Nagoya also faced similar cyber challenges.
JAL successfully restored its systems and resumed normal operations several hours after the initial attack.