Websites for more than a dozen airports in the United States were temporarily brought offline by cyberattacks. Russian-speaking hackers claimed responsibility for the disruption caused to airport websites, including those for some of the largest airports in the U.S.
The Russian hacking group known as Killnet took responsibility for the hacks. The loosely organized “hacktivists” are politically motivated to support the Kremlin, but are not thought to directly be government actors, with their ties to Moscow remaining unknown.
The type of cyberattack used by Killnet is known as “distributed denial of service” (DDoS), in which hackers flood computer servers with phony web traffic to knock them offline.
A senior government official said the attacks did not affect air traffic control, internal airport communication, or other key operations. But the official said that the interruption caused an “inconvenience” for travelers attempting to access information.
Killnet listed multiple U.S. airports as targets. It stepped up its activity to target organizations in NATO countries after Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February.
About 14 public-facing websites for a number of sizable airports were targeted and inaccessible to the public. Most have since been brought back online.
It included including LaGuardia airport in New York City, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, and Chicago O’Hare international airport — all massive airports across the U.S.
Killnet also claimed responsibility last week for knocking offline state governments’ websites.
Killnet is blamed for briefly downing a Congress website in July and for cyberattacks on organizations in Lithuania after the country blocked a shipment of goods to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in June.
Officials have not tied the cyberattack to any foreign state. No immediate signs of impact to actual air travel have yet been reported.
“Obviously, we’re tracking that, and there’s no concern about operations being disrupted,” Kiersten Todt, Chief of Staff of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said.
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