IndiGo’s servers hacked in Dec, airline says internal docs may be uploaded publicly

IndiGo on Thursday said that its servers were hacked during the early days of December and it is possible that hackers might upload some internal documents on public websites.

"We would like to make this disclosure that some of our servers were subject to a hacking incident earlier this month," said India's largest airline in a statement. Indigo was able to restore systems in a very short span of time with minimal impact, it said. 

"There were some segments of data servers that were breached - so, there is a possibility that some internal documents may get uploaded by the hackers on public websites and platforms," the airline said.

The carrier said it realises the seriousness of the issue, and it continues to engage with "all relevant experts and law enforcement" to ensure that the incident is investigated in detail.

Currently, the airline is operating over 1,000 daily flights across 59 domestic and 6 international destinations, including scheduled commercial operations and air bubble flights. Additionally, the airline is operating between 100 and 130 scheduled flights from three key metro cities of Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. At present, the airline is operating at around 70% of its pre-Covid capacity and plans to quickly scale it up to 80%.

Roll-out of anti-Covid vaccine along with rise in new travel trends like 'Workation' and growth in regional routes are expected to accelerate existing passenger traffic to pre-pandemic levels within a few month, IndiGo had earlier told IANS. Accordingly, the airline is gearing-up for the expected demand and plans to repeal the 'Leave Without Pay' norm across all departments from January 1.

In terms of cargo operations, IndiGo's Chief Commercial Officer William Boulter had said the airline is able to satisfy the majority of India's air freight needs, "even without freighter aircraft". "We will continue the deployment of aircraft for 'CarGo-in-cabin' operations even after resuming 100 per cent pre-Covid capacity levels," he said.

During the lockdown, the airline utilised aircraft belly space and added some minor equipment and instituted procedural changes for the cabin to carry significant cargo payloads on its passenger aircraft.