A series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks shut down seven German airports’ websites on Thursday, a day after a major IT glitch at Lufthansa grounded flights.
Ralph Beisel, the general manager of Germany’s ADV airport association, confirmed the network-flooding events in an emailed statement to The Register, but did not specify which airports were hit.
“Again today the airports fell victim to large-scale DDoS attacks,” Beisel said, adding that the DDoS flood rendered the seven airports’ websites temporarily unavailable. “As far as we know, other systems are not affected. It is unclear to what extent the situation will spread to other locations. The airport association ADV is currently preparing a situation report.”
Airports in Düsseldorf, Hanover, Dortmund, Erfurt, Nuremberg and Baden-Baden were affected by the bot-traffic tsunami, according to Spiegel, which reported that a “Russian hacktivist group” took credit for the attacks. The outages only lasted about an hour.
Larger airports in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin were reportedly unaffected.
The DDoS attacks follow a series of IT incidents affecting Germany’s aviation industry over the last few weeks.
On Wednesday, Lufthansa Group told The Register it was working to restore services after an unspecified IT issue – which it said was caused by a sliced broadband cable – forced the airline to delay and cancel flights.
“Fiber-optic cables belonging to a telecommunications service provider were damaged during construction work in Frankfurt, causing an outage of Lufthansa’s IT systems at the airport in Frankfurt,” a spokesperson said. “Flight
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