Russian ‘Killnet’ hacktivists would shut down Eurocontrol’s servers

The website of the European Organization for the Safety of Aviation, abbreviated Eurocontrol, was not available on Wednesday. This is the central coordination point for national air traffic control on the continent.

A brief message published on Eurocontrol’s website on Wednesday morning confirmed “temporary problems with the internet connection”.

The so-called Network Manager Operations Center (NMOC) at Eurocontrol’s headquarters in the Belgian capital Brussels has been affected.

Pro-Russian hacktivists have called for server overload attacks against the European aviation security organization on the Telegram carrier.

While such server overload attacks usually don’t cause major damage, they can lead to service outages that can last for several hours or even days.

The disruptions at Eurocontrol would have no consequences for Swiss flight operations, the Swiss airline said on request on Wednesday afternoon.

attacks since the invasion

Killnet is a pro-Russian hacktivist group known for DDoS attacks against countries that support Ukraine. The group was founded in March 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion.

The US-led Western intelligence alliance Five Eyes warned in April 2022 of attacks on critical infrastructure by Russian-affiliated hacktivist groups, including Killnet.

update follows.

(dsc)