A cyberattack on widely used ticketing and check-in software caused major disruptions at several European airports over the weekend and continued to affect flight operations at the start of the new week. The attack hit a system that powers self-service kiosks for passenger check-in and the printing of boarding passes and baggage tags.
As a result, major airports such as those in London, Brussels and Berlin had to process check-ins and baggage handling partly by hand. Passengers faced waiting times of several hours for procedures that normally take only minutes. Brussels Airport in particular reported numerous flight cancellations and delays.
The origin of the attack remains unclear. Authorities believe it targeted an external service provider, possibly involving ransomware. Official investigations are still under way.
Experts view the incident as a stark reminder of how vulnerable critical infrastructure can be when relying on third-party software. The more interconnected these services are, the greater the risk that a single system outage will have far-reaching consequences. They recommend strengthening security standards, enforcing strict privileged-access management (PAM), and adopting a Zero-Trust architecture. Additional measures such as thorough network segmentation and the deployment of advanced intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS) can further help limit the impact of similar attacks and protect the resilience of essential services.
