An apparently coordinated denial-of-service attack organized by pro-Russia hackers rendered the websites of some major U.S. airports, including Denver International Airport, unreachable early Monday, though officials said flights were not affected.
The attacks — in which participants flood targets with junk data — were orchestrated by a shadowy group that calls itself Killnet. On the eve of the attacks the group published a target list on its Telegram channel.
While highly visible and aimed at maximum psychological impact, DDoS attacks are mostly a noisy nuisance, different from hacking that involves breaking into networks and can do serious damage.
“Similar to many other U.S. airports, DEN’s website has been targeted. The attacks began around 11 a.m. this morning and they continue,” said Alex Renteria, manager of external communications at DIA. “The attackers are attempting to overwhelm our website so that it becomes unavailable to the public.
“At this time, the attacks have not been impactful, though we are closely monitoring these attacks and any others. We are also sharing information on these attacks with TSA, CISA, and other airports.”
As of 7:45 p.m. Monday, DIA’s website was online.
“We noticed this morning that the external website was down, and our IT and security people are in the process of investigating,” said Andrew Gobeil, a spokesman for Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. “There has been no impact on operations.”
Portions of the public-facing side of the Los Angeles International Airport website were also disrupted, spokeswoman Victoria Spilabotte said. “No internal airport systems were compromised and there were no operational disruptions.”
Spilabotte said the airport notified the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration, and the airport’s information-technology team was working to restore all services and investigate the cause ..
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