Bristol Airport has blamed a ransomware attack for causing a power outage of flight data screens for two days throughout the weekend.
The air terminal said that the ransomware attack began Friday morning, taking out a few PCs over the airplane terminal system, incorporating its screens which give insights about the entry and takeoff data of flights. The attack forced the airport authorities to bring down its systens and utilize whiteboards and paper notices to report check-in and arrival information for flights going through the airport.
“We are currently experiencing technical problems with our flight information screens,” it was confirmed in a post on the Bristol Airport’s official Twitter feed. “Flights are unaffected and details of check-in desks, boarding gates, and arrival/departure times will be made over the public address system. Additional staff are on hand to assist passengers.”
The airport also informed passengers to arrive early and “allow extra time for check-in and boarding processes,” but still, airport customers needed to wait longer than one hour for their luggage. No flight delays were caused due to the attack.
“We are grateful to passengers for their patience while we have been working to resolve issues with flight information this weekend. Digital screens are now live in arrivals and departures. Work will continue to restore complete site-wide coverage as soon as possible,” the airport tweeted.
Right now, it isn’t clear how the ransomware got into the airport system. There is ongoing examination to discover what really happened.
