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A suspected cyber attack has been launched on several airports across Germany overnight, bringing down their websites and online services.
The German Airports Association (ADV standing for Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Verkehrsflughäfen) said that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks targeted seven airports; however, only four have suffered outages.
Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Erfurt and Nuremberg had their websites affected, while the online services of larger airports in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin remained operational.
“Once again, airports fell victim to large-scale DDoS attacks,” said Ralph Beisel, general manager of the ADV.
Beisel went on to say that other airport operations were unaffected but that the outages would affect customers over the next few days, particularly as the attack lined up with strikes at several German airports.
The aviation industry has been the target of cyber attacks this week, with Scandinavian airline SAS having been hit by a cyber attack only days before.
While now fixed, the 14 February attack saw users accidentally logging into the wrong accounts and accessing other customers’ data.
Dear @SAS
— Johannes Skov Andersen (@JohannesSkov) 14 February 2023
There is a major security breach in your app. Both my friend and I got the EuroBonus information, including all flight info, boarding passes etc., from complete strangers in the app when trying to check in. pic.twitter.com/NYfcCBJgXx
The airline advised users to steer clear of the website and app during the breach.
Regarding technical issues with our website and app: pic.twitter.com/YX36ANEc56
— SAS - Scandinavian Airlines (@SAS) 15 February 2023
The airline has provided very little information regarding the incident.