What do we know about the cyberattacks that hit Europe's airports?

Published on 21/09/2025 - 15:56 GMT+2

A cyberattack has caused disruptions astatine respective airports for nan 2nd time connected Sunday aft hackers targeted check-in exertion institution Collins Aerospace.

Heathrow Airport successful nan United Kingdom, arsenic good arsenic airports successful Berlin and Brussels, were affected. 

Brussels Airport said that it expected dense disruptions and formation cancellations connected Sunday arsenic a result. 

This is everything we cognize astir nan incident. 

What happened?

Collins Aerospace, which provides nan check-in and boarding systems for immoderate airlines, was impacted. 

RTX, nan genitor institution of Collins Aerospace, said it was alert of a “cyber-related disruption” to its MUSE software, according to Reuters.

“The effect is constricted to physics customer check-in and baggage driblet and tin beryllium mitigated pinch manual check-in operations,” RTX added. The institution said that it was looking to resoluteness nan rumor arsenic soon arsenic possible.

The airports were deed precocious connected Friday by disruptions to physics systems that snarled check-in and sent hose staffers scrambling for options, specified arsenic handwriting boarding passes aliases utilizing backup laptops, AP reported.

Which airports are affected?

On Saturday, 35 departures and 25 arrivals were cancelled. Brussels saw nan highest number of formation cancellations, astatine 15, aviation analytics supplier Cirium told CNBC. Flights were besides cancelled connected Sunday. 

‘Attractive target’

Transportation and logistics person consistently classed among nan world’s apical 10 astir attacked industries.

“The aviation manufacture has go an progressively charismatic target for cybercriminals because of its dense reliance connected shared integer systems,” Charlotte Wilson, caput of endeavor astatine cybersecurity patient Check Point, told Euronews Next.

“These attacks often onslaught done nan proviso chain, exploiting third-party platforms that are utilized by aggregate airlines and airports astatine once. When 1 vendor is compromised, nan ripple effect tin beryllium contiguous and far-reaching, causing wide disruption crossed borders,” she added. 

She advised that aviation tin build resilience by applying a layered approach: rigorously patching and updating package to adjacent vulnerabilities, continuously monitoring for different activity that could bespeak an intrusion, and implementing clear, well-tested backup systems that guarantee airports and airlines tin support operating moreover if captious integer devices are knocked offline.

However, she said, “this situation cannot beryllium addressed successful isolation” and advised amended information-sharing betwixt governments, airlines, and exertion providers truthful that erstwhile 1 state reports an attack, nan faster others tin return action to incorporate it.

“Cybercriminals are exploiting each anemic nexus successful this highly connected ecosystem. Unless nan assemblage treats cybersecurity arsenic a matter of operational continuity and rider safety, not conscionable IT, nan consequence of large-scale disruption will proceed to rise,” Wilson said.