Remember the news on July 8th that a “computer glitch” mysteriously grounded all United Airlines flights? This on the exact same day that another “computer glitch” mysteriously forced the New York Stock Exchange to halt trading for nearly four hours.
The United Airlines timetable is pictured in Newark International Airport, New Jersey July 8, 2015. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Coincidence, we were told. Nothing to see here.
NYSE president Thomas Farley blamed the shut down on “a configuration issue.” United blamed a “router issue” which had “degraded network connectivity for various applications, causing this morning’s operational disruption.”
All on the same day.
Well, now news emerges that the same Chinese hackers who stole data on 21 million Americans from the Office of Personnel Management are also behind a previously unreported breach at — you guessed it –United Airlines, the same airline whose flights were mysteriously grounded a few weeks ago. Bloomberg reports:
United, the world’s second-largest airline, detected an incursion into its computer systems in May or early June, said several people familiar with the probe. According to three of these people, investigators working with the carrier have linked the attack to a group of China-backed hackers they say are behind several other large heists — including the theft of security-clearance records from the US Office of Personnel Management and medical data from health insurer Anthem Inc.
The previously unreported United breach raises the possibility that the hackers now have data on the movements of millions of Americans, adding airlines to a growing list of strategic US industries and institutions that have been compromised. Among the cache of data stolen from United are manifests — which include information on flights’ passengers, origins and destinations — according to one person familiar with the carrier’s investigation.
It’s increasingly clear, security experts say, that China’s intelligence apparatus is amassing a vast database. Files stolen from the federal personnel office by this one China-based group could allow the hackers to identify Americans who work in defense and intelligence, including those on the payrolls of contractors. US officials believe the group has links to the Chinese government, people familiar with the matter have said.
So United detected in May or June that its customer and flight records had been stolen but failed to notify its customers – and then did not share this information after its computer network mysteriously shut down and grounded flights, blaming it instead on a computer glitch. Does anyone seriously think that this Chinese breach of United’s computer systems and the subsequent “router issue” grounding all United flights are unrelated? Indeed, the Bloomberg story notes:
The timing of the United breach also raises questions about whether it’s linked to computer faults that stranded thousands of the airline’s passengers in two incidents over the past couple of months. Two additional people close to the probe, who like the others asked not to be identified when discussing the investigation, say the carrier has found no connection between the hack and a July 8 systems failure that halted flights for two hours. They didn’t rule out a possible, tangential connection to an outage on June 2.
Tangential? Sure. If you think that these two events are unrelated – or that the shutdown of the NYSE and United Airlines on the same day are unrelated – you probably believe gullible is not a word in the dictionary too.
The scope of this Chinese cyberattack on America is growing larger by the day. And still the Obama administration has not responded at all. We know that China has stolen personal information on tens of millions of Americans – an unprecedented attack that, in and of itself, requires a decisive response. If China were also responsible for grounding a major US airline and shutting down the New York Stock Exchange, those would be acts of war. Our failure to retaliate will send a signal to the world that America can be hacked and attacked with impunity.
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