Europe’s Airport Cyber Nightmare Echoes the CrowdStrike Chaos
Centralized tech can cause catastrophic problems across supply chains when things go wrong.
A cyberattack on an airport software vendor highlights the risks of exposure to a single point of failure for any industry.
Photographer: Joris Smets/AFP/Getty Images
Europeans were in airport purgatory over the weekend after a cyberattack on a provider of check-in and boarding systems caused delays and cancellations, affecting hubs including Heathrow and Berlin where some airlines had to board passengers manually. The attack took place late Friday, according to Brussels Airport, and gummed up travel across the continent. Charlotte, NC-based Collins Aerospace confirmed a “cyber-related disruption” to its MUSE software, following a now familiar pattern of companies scrambling to deal with the fallout from a single point of failure.
There are parallels with last year’s CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. incident, where a botched software update crashed millions of devices, halting airlines, banks and emergency services and causing financial losses amounting to billions of dollars. Alaska Air Group Inc. has suffered outages and cyberattacks recently, while an electrical substation fire at Heathrow in March closed the airport completely for more than 16 hours prompting the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights.