Brussels (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – On Monday, the European Union’s cybersecurity agency stated that the airport disruptions resulting from issues with automatic check-in systems were due to a ransomware incident by a third party.
“The type of ransomware has been identified. Law enforcement is involved to investigate,”
Said the agency ENISA in a statement.
A few days ago, several major airports across Europe were hit with flight delays and cancellations due to a cyberattack on a service provider for check-in and boarding systems. Major airports in Europe, Heathrow in London, Brussels, and Berlin, were faced with disruption following a cyber attack on a third-party system.
How did the disruption affect airports across europe?
Brussels Airport announced that the attack had brought automated systems to a halt, causing manual check-in and boarding processes.
“This has a large impact on the flight schedule and will, unfortunately, cause delays and cancellations of flights…The service provider is actively working on the issue and trying to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.”
London Heathrow and Berlin airports had also confirmed that the seizure is causing disruption to their aviation. Passengers were advised to check with their airlines before travelling to the airport on Saturday.
“Due to a technical issue at a system provider operating across Europe, there are longer waiting times at check-in. We are working on a quick solution,”
Berlin Airport said.
What are the previous instances where ransomware has affected airport operations?
A related incident took place in 2022, where Swissport, a provider of airport ground and cargo-handling services, was attacked by the BlackCat ransomware group. This resulted in disruptions to air service with flight delays and encrypted company files, and some 1.6 TB of Swissport data was extracted by the attackers to extort the company.
In another Ransomware incident, a Ransomware called SamSam infected official city government computers, affecting some of the networks connected to the airport, forcing the airport to shut off its internal Wi-Fi network to contain the incident. There were no flight disruptions; however, airport operations were affected.
