Grounded: Why the European airports cyber incident is a wake-up call

Travellers across Europe faced a weekend of disruption on Friday, 19 September, after airports including London Heathrow, Berlin Brandenburg and Brussels were hit by flight delays and cancellations following a cyber attack.

The attack, believed to be a ransomware strike on aviation IT provider Collins Aerospace, targeted its widely used check-in technology. The failure forced several airports to revert to manual systems, leaving thousands of passengers stranded, resulting in queues and backlogs. While travel has largely returned to normal, the incident underlines the importance of building cyber resilience into our critical infrastructure.

Airports, in particular, pose significant cyber risks due to their complexity and highly digitized processes. As a critical part of a nation’s infrastructure, the approach to securing them must reflect the reality that no system is entirely secure – a point acknowledged in the World Economic Forum’s report, The Cyber Resilience Compass. This means that the focus cannot solely be on preventing attacks. It is equally vital to build resilience to ensure that when attacks do happen, their impact is minimized and critical services are maintained. This dual approach is crucial for safeguarding passenger safety, maintaining public trust and enabling long-term growth.

Read more at World Economic Forum