Continental Aerospace is under a cyberattack and it has affected its operations in Alabama. The company posted the following notice on its website: Continental® US operations were recently impacted by a cyber incident affecting daily Operations based in Alabama. Continental® is actively engaged with a team of experts who are working to resolve the issues as quickly as possible and expects to resume full operations soon.
Continental did not respond to our email request for more details but an AVweb reader reported that the delivery date of an engine he has ordered has been pushed back at least a month. “So far, build completion date for this engine, ordered 28 December, has slipped from 24 Feb to “end of March”, as of two weeks ago,” the reader reported. He said he has not been told the reason for the delay but wonders if the cyber attack had anything to do with it.
Kind of sounds like a ransom ware attack.
ANY business who has their core business functions directly on the internet deserves what they get. You have an unconnected internal network and a “public” external network. This SHOULD have been standard practice for public utilities as well.
After programming and working in and with computers since the 70s, I agree with you. I think one of the main issues now is the social hacking (or social engineering) aspect. We can harden and isolate our networks until the proverbial cows arrive from the fields, but it seems as though there is always someone in the office or on the network who just has to open that surprise email from a ‘friend’ (who has been hacked…) to view the latest hilarious cat video. Even on an isolated network, we have had individuals who bring a thumb drive (“it’s my own thumb drive… how can that hurt anything?”) from a home computer to upload a file. I’ve got several stories of how intelligent people have compromised our systems by a single unguarded or unthinking moment. Sigh…
Most people would be horrified to learn just how exposed we are. I don’t have any social media accounts other than email and the occasional attempts at comments on AVWEB. Back in the punchcard, machine language, Fortran, and Lisp days when we got started, nobody dreamed that the current situation would be the end result… or at least nobody I was associated with. We just thought computers were neat and a great way to zorch a calculus exam. Cold pizza and Tab at 4 am… those were the days.
The criminals are always going to be one step ahead of the white hats.
I got into computers a decade before you, Bruce (vacuum-tube gates and machine language) and whole-heartedly endorse everything you said. IMHO, we were the safest when there was a firewall between the user and the network, but we sacrificed security on the altar of convenience and portability. I have never had a “social media” account, and at this point where my cohort is shrinking, I never will. All my friends have email. My close friends (and some relatives) have my phone number. I could not care less about Beyonce’s latest album, except that an incredibly talented acquaintance is playing banjo on it.
Hindsight is always 20/20.
They likely don’t have their “core business services” internet-accessible; it was more likely a social engineering (i.e. phishing) attack. These days, it takes a full-time team of security engineers to stay on top of system vulnerabilities; something I doubt Continental has on staff.
Maybe the hackers found the secret hidden plans to make consistent cylinder valve geometries.
If they are mopping up from a cyber attack then a phone call would probably be more helpful than sending them an email. Email phishing is probably how the attack started in the first place.
Does anyone here know who owns Continental Motors at this point?
The Chinese are down to hacking their own companies at this point…LOL.
So, is this the Russians hacking the Chinese? Or some Chinese hacking other Chinese?
I’m so confused…
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