Boeing says WannaCry virus attack will not impact aircraft production
Plane maker Boeing has been hit by the WannaCry computer virus.
The company tried to allay fears of its impact, saying plane production is not affected.
Still, it had executives worried, as evidenced in an internal memo written by Mike VanderWel, chief engineer.
The memo called for ‘all hands on deck’ when the virus was discovered.
"It is metastasizing rapidly and I just heard 777 (automated assembly tools) may have gone down," adding that there was potential that it could ‘spread to airplane software.’
"We are on a call with just about every VP in Boeing," VanderWe wrote.
In a statement Boeing said those fears were did not materialize.
"Our cybersecurity operations center detected a limited intrusion of malware that affected a small number of systems. Remediations were applied and this is not a production and delivery issue," it said.
The WannaCry virus first came to light last year and takes advantage of a Windows security flaw to infect computers and can quickly spread to an entire PC network.
It is a ransomware bug which locks users out until a ransom is paid.
Cybersecurity analyst Mitchell Edwards said it had the potential to infect systems used by Boeing engineers for monitoring or testing production equipment but is unlikely it could affect the equipment itself.
"Obviously, Boeing isn’t going to be running its entire production network on Windows. "I hope not anyway. So it’s likely a limited infection."
He played down fears in the media that planes already in service could be impacted.
"I don’t think any of Boeing’s planes or any aircraft anywhere run Embedded Windows. It’s not suitable for applications that require consistent, real-time availability without delay because lives depend on it."
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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