A hack hitting major airports across Europe followed by drone incursions in Copenhagen and Oslo are testing the weak spots of the region’s aviation infrastructure and raising fears about coordinated attacks leading to increased disruption.
Drones halted flights at Copenhagen’s main airport on Monday for several hours, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen linking the incident to a series of suspected Russian drone incursions and other disruptions across Europe. That came alongside a separate drone incident in Norway’s capital, Oslo, and days after hackers hit check-in systems with a ransomware attack at airports including London’s Heathrow Airport, Europe’s busiest, as well as in Berlin and Brussels.
Investigators have yet to determine who was behind the disruption, but experts see them as part of a spate of “hybrid threat” incidents in the region to test how countries manage their critical infrastructure.
Photo: Steven Knap, Ritzau Scanpix via Reuters
“First is to test how the method works. In this case, it leads to closing down airports,” said Jukka Savolainen, network director at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. “The second testing point is our reaction.”
Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin said in a statement that allegations of Russian involvement were ungrounded.
The disruptions lay bare how vulnerable the civil aviation sector’s operations can be, with outages down the supply chain rippling across airports and airline operations, leading to hundreds of delayed and canceled flights.
As “hybrid war” threats grow, including drones, GPS interference and hacks, experts said aviation regulators need to take more steps to mitigate against risks to cybersecurity, navigation systems and overall safety.
“This attack shows just how vulnerable highly connected industries like aviation can be,” said Bart Salaets, chief technology officer at US cybersecurity firm F5, speaking about the weekend hack of Collins Aerospace check-in software.
Analysts and experts pointed to an increase in activity by possible Russian actors across Europe in the past few weeks as an impetus for regulators to offer clearer guidelines and encourage more action to defend critical infrastructure.
Drone activity “is getting worse and in my opinion it won’t stop,” said Eric Schouten, director of security intelligence at aviation advisory firm Dyami. “Airlines are looking at governments and authorities in this, airports the same.”
The cost and burden of upgrading infrastructure could prevent airports from moving fast to react, even as security concerns in civil airspace gain prominence with a war at Europe’s eastern edge after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Jake Moore, an adviser at ESET, a Slovakian cybersecurity firm, said that when aviation supply chains were attacked it created disruption on a global scale.
“Whether this was a deliberate disruption attack, a financially motivated ransom or a major technical failure, the impact demonstrates how fragile such systems can be in a digitally focused world,” he said.
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