The Carnival Corporation-owned company AIDA Cruises announced it had to cancel New Year's Eve voyages around the Canary Islands due to IT issues. The Canaries are one of the last remaining travel destinations during the pandemic.
Rostock public prosecutor has taken over the investigation on Tuesday, December 29. Several specialists from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Criminal Police Office are supporting the company in finding the source of the problems, the authority revealed.
So far it's not certain that it was a hacker attack, the spokesman for the Rostock public prosecutor, Harald Nowack, said. AIDA Cruises had turned to the State Criminal Police Office with a request for help. According to Nowack, they were only at the beginning of the investigation. The team of investigators was currently meeting via conference calls, mostly lateral entrants from IT professions.
A spokesman for AIDA Cruises said the IT-technical restrictions, especially in communication with their guests, persisted.
The cruises started by AIDAperla and AIDAmar were regularly ended, but the new sailings were not started.
The IT malfunctions commenced on AIDAmar. Operations onboard that normally take place with a chip card, therefore, had to be done manually.