Boeing acknowledges malware infection following reports of ransomware attack

Boeing has acknowledged a cybersecurity incident that affected a limited number of its computers after The Seattle Times reported that the airline maker had been hit with ransomware — the same type of malicious software responsible for recently sidelining government systems in cities including Atlanta and Baltimore, among other victims.

“Our cybersecurity operations center detected a limited intrusion of malware that affected a small number of systems,” Boeing said in a statement Wednesday evening.

“Remediations were applied and this is not a production or delivery issue,” the statement said.

The infection was first reported earlier Wednesday by The Seattle Times after Boeing chief engineer Mike VanderWel sent out a memo to colleagues warning that malware was discovered on some of the company’s computers.

“We are on a call with just about every VP in Boeing,” Mr. VanderWel’s memo said, The Times reported. “All hands on deck,” he wrote.

Linda Mills, the head of communications for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, subsequently downplayed the severity of the security incident, The Times reported.

“We’ve done a final assessment,” Ms. Mills said. “The vulnerability was limited to a few machines. We deployed software patches. There was no interruption to the 777 jet program or any of our programs.”

“It took some time for us to go to our South Carolina operations, bring in our entire IT team and make sure we had the facts,” Ms. Mills told The Times.

The infection was limited to Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes division and failed to affect the firm’s military and services units, the newspaper reported.

The Seattle Times identified the strain of malware that infected Boeing as “WannaCry,” the same type of ransomware that crippled computer systems last May in over 150 countries, claiming victims ranging from Honda and Hitachi, to the U.K. National Health Service and universities in Canada, China, Colombia and Greece, among others.

Ransomware works by encrypting the contents of infected computers and then holding that data hostage until the the perpetrator receives a ransom payment typically in the form of Bitcoin or other hard-to-trace cryptocurrency.

Boeing spokesman Charles Bickers declined to clarify whether the airline maker had been infected with WannaCry a different strain of ransomware, The New York Times reported.

Nearly a year since the WannaCry outbreak, however, ransomware infections continue to claim high-profile victims across the private and public sectors alike. The city of Atlanta revealed last week that some of its computer had become infected with ransomware, and The Baltimore Sun reported on Wednesday that ransomware was responsible for sidelining the Maryland city’s 911 dispatch system over the weekend.