Warfare in the 21st century is much different than the sort of conflicts that we’ve seen in the past, with much of the conflict turning less literal and less physical, and relying on hybrid forms of combat the likes of which would never have been previously possible.
This week, a sign of the times has arrived, as Russian hackers took control of several US airport websites in what appeared to be a coordinated response to America’s continued support of Ukraine in their fight to remain a sovereign nation.
A pro-Russian hacker group is taking credit for temporarily taking down several U.S. airport websites on Monday, though there appeared to be no impact on flight operations.
The attacks claimed by Killnet impacted the websites for Los Angeles International, Chicago O’Hare, and Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta, among others.
The group posted a list of airports on Telegram, urging hackers to participate in what’s known as a DDoS attack — a distributed denial-of-service caused when a computer network is flooded by simultaneous data transmissions.
The list of targets was rather large.
The group’s call to action included airports across the country, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Missouri.
Representatives from the affected airports declared that no integral systems were breached in the attacks, and that only the customer-facing informational websites came under siege temporarily on Monday.
