Pro-Russia Hackers Conducting DOS Attacks On Some US Airports

Websites for a handful of U.S. airports, including those in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, were taken offline during a cyberattack Monday, although officials said there was no effect on flight operations.

The attacks were carried out by a group of pro-Russian hackers known as Killnet, according to John Hultquist, vice president for intelligence at Mandiant, an American cybersecurity firm. Killnet called for coordinated denial-of-service attacks on cyber targets from a list it posted on its Telegram channel — a list that included several major U.S. airports. Denial-of-service attacks occur when a target is flooded with traffic until it can’t respond or crashes.

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Vivaci

That was very disturbing to hear this morning, NW…as was the fact that the ‘Butcher of Syria’ is now the newly appointed rogue general 😣

Northwest · M

@Vivaci Fortunately, this only affected the web sites, not operations. I don't think I ever go to an airport's web site for information.

Vivaci

Lolz…yes. That was a subtle threat so as not to disturb the hornet’s nest. But clearly the rogue has lost the war…and is now seeking desperately to create chaos, like a cranky puss. @Northwest

Northwest · M

@Vivaci Typical web sites do not have robust DOS protection. These clowns seem to be amateurs, anyone can pull this off, and but it only takes once and these sites can strengthen their DOS defenses.

Vivaci

@Northwest I mean I was hoping at least the major international airports have decent data security.

Lolz…yeah, they couldn’t do much other than just switch off the websites…and honestly the airport staff(temp n permanent) should be questioned coz it could very well be an inside job…considering how putin works with rats.

Northwest · M

@Vivaci DOS (Denial Of Service) attacks are the lazy way to attack a web site. Typically used by those without much skill. All they're doing is automating sending an http request to some airport website.

These sites should have been been better protected, with a front end that knows bow to deal with. Fortunately, there are plenty of consultants out there, who can fix it overnight.

Data is a different issue, and that's when insider jobs come in handy, as most backend infrastructure, is not accessible.

It was interesting how Trump, offered to let Putin send the FSB to "help" us secure our national security network.

Vivaci

@Northwest

It was interesting how Trump, offered to let Putin send the FSB to "help" us secure our national security network.

Tell me more 😳

Northwest · M

@Vivaci This was back when Trump and Putin met, in private, in Helsinki, and supposedly Trump raised the issue of Russian hackers, who attacked a number of US infrastructure targets. Our intelligence agencies told Trump that the Russians did it, and that Putin approved.

Trump emerged from the meeting, and stated the Putin denied that Russian hackers were behind it, and that Putin, out of the goodness of his own heart, offered his experts, to come in and "fix" our infrastructure to make it hacker-proof.

Fortunately, US officials ignored Trump's orders.

Vivaci

@Northwest oh yeah…I remember that! What bs…smh…

He was also very upset that while he was with Merkel, putin had called and he missed that call so during Merkels meeting, he kept looking at his staff and asking them again and again if he had really missed putins call. What a puppet tbh…