European air traffic control says pro-Russian hack attack does not affect flights

Europe’s air traffic control authority said it had been battling since Wednesday an ongoing attack claimed by pro-Russian hackers.

According to the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol), there was no impact on flights, although access to the website was affected.

“The attack is causing disruptions to the website and web availability,” a Eurocontrol spokesperson said in a statement. “There was no impact on European aviation.”

The International Air Transport Association also said air traffic was operating normally.

“There was no inconvenience to commercial air traffic, no interruptions and no delays because of the cyber attack,” the group said.

Eurocontrol is an intergovernmental organization that helps manage Europe’s airspace and ensure that flights run smoothly every day, sharing information between commercial and military actors.

The group has 41 member states, including countries outside the European Union such as the United Kingdom and Israel. The organization’s headquarters are in Brussels.

cyber warfare

Pro-Russian hackers have claimed responsibility for a series of cyberattacks on institutions in Europe since Moscow began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

European countries provided Ukraine with military assistance and imposed a series of sanctions on Russia, aimed at undermining its ability to wage war.

Last year, for example, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense said that a prolonged cyberattack hit websites of government agencies and private companies in the country.

A group of hackers, known as Killnet, claimed responsibility for at least some of the attacks, saying they were acting in retaliation against Lithuania by blocking the shipment of some goods to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, located between Lithuania and Poland.

The Danish Cybersecurity Center raised the threat level for the country in March, noting “high activity by pro-Russian activist hacker groups against NATO countries.

“It is likely that pro-Russian groups will remain motivated to pursue targets in Denmark and the West for as long as the current crisis between Russia and the West lasts,” the center said in a statement.

Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS attacks – which flood websites with fake traffic to bring them down – have been a common tool, according to the Danish authority.

While the attacks draw attention, they “do not leave permanent destructive consequences for victims’ systems,” he said.

Some hacking campaigns targeting European entities are believed to have ties to Russia’s military.

Microsoft has told customers that Russian military-linked hackers were targeting the networks of European military, energy and transport organizations in an apparent spying campaign that went unnoticed for months.

In a separate report published last month, the company said its analysts had detected Russian cyber “threat activity” against organizations, including governments, in at least 17 European countries between January and mid-February.