Russian Cybercriminals Attack Multiple American Airports Websites

On Monday, at least a dozen websites for various American airports were affected by Russian hackers.

The websites of Colorado, Mississippi, and Kentucky were among the several state government websites in America that were compromised only last week by the same set of hackers.

Even the US Congress website was taken down by the same organization in July.

The hackers belonged to a Russian organization called Killnet, according to CNN. CNN later clarified that Killnet has no formal ties to the Russian government.

Attacks involving distributed denial of service (DDoS) sometimes employ Killnet. The websites receive so much traffic from the hackers all at once that they are unable to handle any more visitors because they are resource-constrained.

On Monday morning, Killnet requested its 91,000 followers to visit the websites of all 49 American airports at once by posting a list of those links on their telegram account.

The organization stated that it intends to launch DDoS assaults against American civilian targets, adding that several hospitals and websites that track the weather are also on their list of targets.

In a similar vein, Killnet urged other anti-American organizations to carry on their cyberattacks on the United States.

The LaGuardia Airport in New York City, as well as the international airports in Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, were some of the well-known airports impacted by the hack.

Sensitive flight data is typically hosted on airport websites. Many flights are even susceptible to mishaps if hackers are able to breach the security mechanisms of these websites. Hackers have the ability to transmit faulty signals to aircraft carrying large passenger loads.

Killnet has previously requested that its users delete webpages. In reality, the hacking organization routinely publishes lists of various websites to be disrupted and invites any potential hackers to join them in doing so.

According to an unnamed senior aviation official, neither the flight schedule nor air traffic control, nor any other important website function, were affected by the cyberattack on the airport websites.

The official did point out that the attack was significant enough to annoy travelers trying to get the information via websites.

The similar kind of incident also occurred in Germany, when hackers interfered with the country’s train system’s communication networks.

German authorities made no accusations against any foreign parties for carrying out the cyberattacks.