Alaska Airlines IT Outage Grounds Flights Amid Rising Cyber Threats

Alaska Airlines faced an operational halt on Sunday due to a significant IT outage, forcing the grounding of all flights. This marks the airline's second major disruption in just over a year, with the previous incident linked to system calculations affecting aircraft weight and balance.

The airline confirmed the grounding in a statement, citing disruptions to its entire system starting late Sunday evening. Residual impacts were expected throughout the evening, but specific details were not provided. The FAA's real-time status reflected the comprehensive nature of the stoppage.

This outage highlights the rising cyber threat to the aviation sector, as demonstrated by previous incidents involving Hawaiian Airlines and Qantas. Warnings from tech giants like Google and Palo Alto Networks about the "Scattered Spider" hacking group underline the escalating concern. According to sector observers, these events stress the importance of robust cybersecurity measures for airlines globally.

(With inputs from agencies.)