IT engineers are working hard trying to reboot the nation’s pilot messaging system. The Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM, went offline at 2028 Zulu time, according to an article by Flying Magazine’s managing editor Kimberly Johnson.
NOTAM allows pilots and airlines to check airspace restrictions and abnormal situations that might affect the flight path of the plane. It’s a must-have for pilots, as Bettina Inclán, a former NASA communications director, posted this update on Twitter from one of United Airlines pilots:
As of 9:30 a.m. Jan. 11, the NOTAM system is slowly being brought back online. Flights are beginning to take off from limited airports. An estimated 1,162 flights within, into, or out of the US have been delayed while 94 have been canceled due to the outage.
Truckers awaiting air cargo flights might have to take a nap out on the tarmac. No notices have been issued by UPS or Fed-Ex about the NOTAM failure causing issues.
This is the first time a national ground halt has been issued since 9/11.
Trucking has had similar outages affect vital systems
This situation reminds me of the Omnitracs GPS outages that happened back in November 2019. A remnant of the Y2K clock bug hit the system, causing tracking data to be wiped and forcing drivers to break out the paper logs we have on hand for emergencies.
For four days, drivers reverted to the old ways of having to call dispatchers for assignments and directions and use log rulers to draw out their Hours of Service.
It was a short renaissance for drivers. For the companies trying to juggle load assignments, it was a nightmare.
While issues with logging devices are one thing, an attack on a factoring payment system can stop trucks in their tracks. On Aug, 18, 2022, Apex Capital was forced to come clean about their outages being caused by a cyber attack.
This attack led to issues with drivers being unable to get fuel via their TCS fuel cards. Trucks without fuel are not a good thing, as that means drivers can’t haul freight and earn an income due to being paid by the mile.
BlackByte, a well-known ransomware operation, claimed Apex’s scalp publicly and for a week the systems were locked. A pay-to-play system was posted online soon after.
The gimmick is similar to those used by streamers where you pay to have different things happen, but in this instance, the choices were either to buy, share, or delete the data.
Governments, companies, and individuals spend billions of dollars annually on cyber security measures to stay running. But as new methods to prevent takeovers and system failures are developed, you can bet the black hats are sharpening their knives waiting for the next victim to take the bait.
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