Pro-Russian hackers say they're behind cyberattacks on U.S. airports

LAX photo — (Image credit: TriggerPhoto/ Getty Images)

A coalition of pro-Russian hackers is taking credit for a recent cyberattack that took down the websites of several U.S. airports on Monday, NPR reports.

Members of the hacker group known as Killnet were able to disrupt the websites of several airports, including Los Angeles International, Chicago O'Hare, and Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta. Per airport officials' statements, flight operations did not appear to be affected.

The group posted a list of airports to target on Telegram. The post encouraged hackers to carry out a DDoS attack, "a distributed denial-of-service caused when a computer network is flooded by simultaneous data transmissions," NPR reports. The list included airports in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Missouri. NPR reports that it is unclear how many other airports were attacked and whether the cyberattacks disrupted airport operations.

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Earlier on Monday, Killnet suggested that other U.S sites could be vulnerable to this style of cyberattack, including sea terminals and logistics facilities, weather monitoring centers, health care systems, subway systems, and exchanges and online trading systems.

Last week the hacker group also claimed responsibility for another wave of cyberattacks after the group encouraged hackers to shut down state government websites, per CNN. Both cyberattack campaigns appear to respond to U.S involvement in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

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Theara Coleman has worked as a staff writer at The Week since September 2022. She frequently writes about technology, education, literature and general news. She was previously a contributing writer and assistant editor at Honeysuckle Magazine, where she covered racial politics and cannabis industry news.