The websites of several major US airports were briefly taken down on Monday (October 10th) after a group of pro-Russian hackers called for them to be hacked.
They were victims of a denial of service attack, which involves targeting a computer system by flooding it with messages or connection requests.
Several airports have been targeted, including those in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York.
The “Killnet” group behind the attacks
The pages of these airports have been targeted after the pro-Russian hacker group known as "Killnet" published a list of their websites and encouraged its followers to attack them.
No disruption to the operation of the airports has been reported, the operation having only affected the web interface dedicated to the public, which usually displays information on flights and services.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport later tweeted that its website "
was up and running after an incident early this morning rendered it unavailable to the public
."
"
Research to determine the causes of the incident is underway
," he said, adding that "
at no time was the operation of the airport affected
."
Most of the websites of the targeted airports now seem to be functioning normally.
Killnet has claimed responsibility for cyberattacks carried out over the past week on a number of official US government websites.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) did not immediately wish to comment on this cyberattack.