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An Airbus at Zurich Airport (archive photo): »Delays of 3 to 20 minutes«
Photo: Richter / Beautiful Sports / IMAGO
Cyber criminals have successfully attacked the Swiss company Swissport.
A ransomware attack on a limited part of the company's global IT infrastructure occurred at 6 a.m. on Thursday morning, a company spokesman confirmed.
The company works for numerous airlines and airports worldwide.
The attack resulted in temporary delays at Zurich Airport.
"Due to system problems at our airport partner Swissport, 22 flights were delayed by 3 to 20 minutes yesterday," said a spokeswoman for Zurich Airport.
On Friday, the hacker attack had not had any significant impact on flight operations in Zurich, the spokeswoman said.
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Swissport banner at Brussels airport
Photo: THIERRY ROGE / Belga / IMAGO
"We are now in the process of restoring the affected systems," said a Swissport spokesman on request.
The attack has now been contained and everything is being done to solve the problem as quickly as possible and limit the impact on flight operations.
"Swissport can continue to provide ground services for airlines safely, but there may be delays in some cases," said the company spokesman.
The Swissport website could not be reached on Friday afternoon.
Multiple ransomware attacks in Europe
So-called ransomware attacks are attacks by cybercriminals who encrypt their victims' systems with malware and thus paralyze them.
They then demand a ransom for the release of the systems or data.
In such cases, sometimes high ransom payments are demanded from companies in the critical infrastructure.
There have been multiple ransomware attacks on companies important to the transportation sector this week.
At the beginning of the week, an attack on a gas station supplier became known.
At times, the filling terminals for tankers only worked with limited capacity as a result of the hacker attack.
In Belgium, port facilities were attacked by cybercriminals, disrupting the unloading of ships.
The attackers were apparently also targeting oil companies.
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