Russian hackers take down 14 U.S. airport websites, including Springs, Denver
Russian hackers claimed responsibility for taking down the websites of more than a dozen U.S. airports, including Denver International among some of the nation’s largest.
Colorado Springs Airport’s website also was hacked early Monday morning, according to a statement from airport spokeswoman Dana Schield.
“Because the Colorado Springs Airport website is hosted on the city’s website, Colorado Springs.gov and FlyCOS.com were briefly taken offline,” Schield said in the statement.
Technicians had the website up and running by 9 a.m. with no interruption in normal airport operations, officials said.
Officials at Denver International said their website was attacked at 11 a.m. with the intent of “overwhelming our website so that it becomes unavailable to the public.”
In a statement from DIA on Monday afternoon, officials said the attacks were still taking place, but “have not been impactful.”
The 14 airport websites that the Russian hacking group known as Killnet claimed to hit included Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. The hacks appear to be another attack from the pro-Kremlin group to retaliate against U.S. anti-Russia policies.
The Transportation Security Administration is monitoring the issue, a spokesperson told CNN, and is working with airport partners to maintain security.
Killnet, a self-described group of “hacktivists” with Kremlin proclivities, listed the domains on its Telegram channel on Sunday. The websites were then targeted by volunteers with custom software designed to overwhelm the websites with false web traffic to make them inaccessible to the public.
Other airports affected include Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Orlando International Airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, as well as airports in Kentucky, Mississippi and Hawaii. Representatives from the airports claim the hacks did not affect their daily operations.
The hacker group claimed responsibility for hacking several state government websites last week. The group has amped up its attacks on NATO-affiliated locations since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. These include attacks on Congress’ website in July and on the internet infrastructure of countries such as Romania and Italy.
Last week, the state-run Colorado.gov portal homepage was shut down by a cyberattack. The homepage resumed operations around 6 p.m. Thursday, just over 24 hours after the State Emergency Operations Center said an “anonymous suspected foreign actor” forced it offline.