Cyber attack took offline flight display screens at the Bristol Airport
17.9.2018 securityaffairs Attack

The Bristol Airport was hit by a cyber attack that caused problems with operations, flight display screens were taken offline for two days.
The Bristol Airport was hit by a ransomware-based attack that caused problems to the flight display screens for two entire days.

The news reported by the BBC and was confirmed by an airport spokesman that explained that the information screens were taken offline early on Friday in response to a “ransomware” based attack.

“Bristol Airport has blamed a cyber attack for causing flight display screens to fail for two days.” state the article published by the BBC.

“They are now working again at “key locations” including in departures and arrivals, and work is continuing to get the whole site back online.”

The personnel started incident response and contingency measures, “manual processes” manual processes have made up for the interruption of the systems, spokesman refers of usage of whiteboards and marker pens.

According to the spokesman, the airport did not pay the ransom to the attackers.

“We believe there was an online attempt to target part of our administrative systems and that required us to take a number of applications offline as a precautionary measure, including the one that provides our data for flight information screens.” said airport spokesman James Gore.

“That was done to contain the problem and avoid any further impact on more critical systems.

Source BBC – Image copyright JULIEANNE MCMAHON Image caption A spokesman said whiteboards and marker pens had to be used in place of display screens.

The experts don’t believe it was a targeted attack against the British critical infrastructure.

“The indications are that this was a speculative attempt rather than targeted attack on Bristol Airport.”

The good news is that flights were not affected by the cyber attack

Mr Gore said flights were unaffected, but contingency measures and “manual processes”, including whiteboards and marker pens, had to be used in place of display screens.

“At no point were any safety or security systems impacted or put at risk.”

“Given the number of safety and security critical systems operating at an airport, we wanted to make sure that the issue with the flight information application that experienced the problem was absolutely resolved before it was put back online.”