A technical issue at Sunwing Airlines that continues to affect ground flights is attributed to a data security breach at the company’s third-party provider.
“A system that works all the time, that never fails, has been hacked,” said Sunwing President Mark Williams. “They had a cyber breach and they were unable to put the system in place.”
As a result, the company was forced to manually check in passengers, which led to significant delays at airports across Canada as well as sun destinations.
“He was delayed eight times,” said a woman at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. “We were moved to three hotels.”
Amid the chaos, those affected by the outage have little information about when it might be resolved.
“There are no answers,” said another traveler in Toronto. “There is a lack of communication.
Aviation authorities in Canada and the United States want to make sure the system, provided by Chicago-based Airline Choice, is secure before it is reactivated.
In an emailed statement to The Canadian Press on Wednesday, Airline Choice described the breach as a “data security event” that affected a limited number of its computer systems.
“As a precaution, we have taken certain systems offline to secure our environment. We also immediately launched an investigation to determine the nature and extent of the event,” the company said.
Neither Airline Choice nor Sunwing was able to provide a timeline for when the system will be operational again. Sunwing says it is working with other airlines to find additional planes and to help reduce some of the backlog at airports.
Cybersecurity expert Ritesh Kotak says this incident is an example of why companies need to have a backup plan when it comes to the technology they rely on.
“What happens when the lights are out,” he said. “How do you ensure your business continuity and ensure that your processes are safe and secure and that business can actually continue? »
“It looks like they probably don’t have proper processes in place and as a result you see that delay probably getting longer.”
Airline Choice said it has begun restoring some functionality to its systems and is working around the clock to restore service for its customers, which include dozens of airlines and cargo carriers around the world.
But aviation expert John Gradek says Sunwing is just as responsible as its third party for what happened over the past three days.
“You have to make sure that as a buyer you look at the capabilities and features of what you’re buying,” he said. “This includes understanding what safeguards are in place to ensure these types of attacks are mitigated. It seems our friends at Sunwing were just not prepared.
Cyber threats are something businesses need to continually prepare for, Gradek says.
“It’s not a question of whether you’re going to get hacked,” he said. “It’s a question of when. And every organization that deals with e-commerce is going to get hacked at some point. »
Gradek added that he believes the fiasco lies with Sunwing, but the company will pull through.
“I think it’s not going to be the end of Sunwing, it’s going to be a bit of a hiccup along the way,” he said. “Unfortunately, thousands of Canadians are going to be affected.”
Sunwing promised that all passengers delayed for more than three hours will be compensated. They are also allowing passengers traveling between April 19 and April 22 to change their travel dates without penalty, but they must travel by June 23, 2022.
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