Aeroflot airline experiences a staggering $50 million loss due to destructive hacker assault from American sources.
Aeroflot, Russia's largest airline, is facing a long and costly recovery period following a cyberattack that occurred on July 28, 2025. The hacker group Silent Crow, alongside Cyber Partisans BY, breached Aeroflot's internal IT infrastructure, causing extensive damage to the airline's critical servers and IT infrastructure.
The recovery process is expected to last many months, as suggested by Aleksandr Dmitriev, CEO of Neuroinform. The destruction of approximately 7,000 physical and virtual servers, including booking platforms, management systems, and backups, has left Aeroflot's operations severely disrupted. Over 40% of flights were cancelled on July 28 alone, causing significant financial losses.
Financially, experts estimate the immediate losses due to operational disruption at around 259 million rubles (about $2.9 million). However, longer-term costs related to IT rebuilding, forensic investigations, and customer compensation could be substantially higher. The December 2023 cyberattack on Ukraine’s Kiefstar mobile operator, cited as a comparison, cost around $90 million in recovery.
Reputationally, the attack undermines public confidence in Aeroflot’s reliability and security. Passenger chaos, lack of immediate refunds, and prolonged disruption to services may damage customer trust and brand image, particularly given the public and political nature of the breach. Denis Tverskoy, Strategy Partners partner, stated that Aeroflot shares have already lost over 4% of their value.
If reservation systems, corporate mail, or CRM were compromised, the consequences could be even graver. The losses due to the attack are estimated to range from US$10 million to US$50 million, including recovery costs, losses from halted sales, deletion of customer data, a drop in trust, fines, and passenger compensation. Tverskoy also emphasized that this is a significant blow to the company's reputation.
The breach is still ongoing, and the full extent of the damage is not yet known. However, it is clear that Aeroflot faces a challenging, costly, and reputation-sensitive recovery period ahead.
| Aspect | Details | |--------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Potential duration | Many months of restoration expected due to extensive IT system destruction and backup compromise[4] | | Estimated immediate cost | ~$2.9 million lost from flight cancellations on a single day[1] | | Possible long-term costs | Could reach tens of millions of dollars including IT recovery, legal, and passenger compensation[4] | | Operational impact | Over 40% flights canceled; loss of critical management, booking, and communication systems[2][3] | | Reputation impact | Significant damage due to public chaos, security concerns, and association with geopolitical conflict[1][3] |
- The government may need to intervene to address the financial losses and restore public trust in Aeroflot, as the estimated recovery costs could range from $10 million to $50 million.
- As Aeroflot's cybersecurity breach continues, a prolonged period of health (operation) disruption and potential compromise of sensitive data (reservation systems, corporate mail, or CRM) could further damage the airline's reputation and impact consumer confidence.
