Pro-Russian hackers attack European air traffic control

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Cyber ​​attack on European air traffic: The European air traffic control authority Eurocontrol announced on Thursday that it had fallen victim to a cyber attack by pro-Russian hackers. This is reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Air traffic is not in danger, but the attack continues, according to Eurocontrol. The agency’s fears that the security of Europe’s critical infrastructure could be compromised are mounting.

Eurocontrol manages cross-border traffic in the airspaces controlled by national aviation authorities and plays an important role in the safety of air traffic in Europe.

Flight safety systems are not affected

As a spokeswoman for the European Air Traffic Control Organization announced, the attack on the agency’s website began on Wednesday. “The attack leads to disruptions of the website and web availability,” said the spokeswoman.

According to a senior Eurocontrol official, air traffic control reacted immediately and shut down all operational systems. Because the systems used for flight security are not connected to external networks, the hackers could not access them directly, according to the official.

Nevertheless, the attack would have a huge impact on Eurocontrol. Internal and external communication was so badly affected by the attack that some of the employees had to temporarily use commercial communication tools.

“It was a tough cyber battle and while the operation is perfectly safe, it was difficult to do other things,” the official said.

“We will cause great inconvenience to all airlines”

The Russian hacker group Killnet is probably responsible for the cyber attack. On Wednesday evening, the hacktivists announced on their Telegram channel an attack on Eurocontrol.

The post called for hackers to participate in a so-called marathon attack on air traffic control. “From today, a Eurocontrol marathon will take place that will last 100 hours,” the article said.

As the paper continues, Killnet’s post indicates that it was a so-called Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. In information technology, this describes the unavailability of an Internet service that should be available. This is a relatively simple and common attempt by cybercriminals to flood servers with a deluge of requests.

On Telegram, Killnet also shared a post from another channel apparently run by Russian military bloggers. The hacktivists would say they targeted Eurocontrol because the company supports Ukraine. “Therefore, we will now cause great inconvenience to all airlines in Europe,” the post said.

Fear of Russian cyber war

Since the troops of Russian President Vladimir Putin (70) invaded Ukraine, fears have grown in Europe that Russia could attack parts of Europe’s transport, communications and energy infrastructure.

A number of acts of sabotage and cyber-attacks have already taken place in Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine. However, there is no clear evidence that Russia is responsible for the attacks. (dzc)

Source: Blick