Airport Websites In Germany Paralyzed By Likely “DDoS Attack”

The websites of six German airports were knocked offline on Thursday, one day after broadband cables were severed by construction crews in Frankfurt that forced airline carrier Lufthansa to ground all flights.

German media outlet Spiegel Online reported websites of the airports in Düsseldorf, Hanover, Dortmund, Erfurt, Nuremberg, and Baden-Baden were “temporarily unavailable.” Out of the list, Düsseldorf is the fourth largest airport in the country. The largest airport, Frankfurt, was unaffected by the outage.

“The failure was probably based on a so-called DDoS attack,” Spiegel Online said, adding, “A Russian hacktivist group claimed responsibility for the attack online.” 

So far, flight operations at the affected airports weren’t disrupted. Computers that were affected include ones that display information about arrivals and departures.

The outage comes one day after construction workers in Frankfurt severed Deutsche Telekom AG’s broadband cables, forcing Lufthansa to ground flights on Wednesday.

And on Friday, a planned strike by labor union Verdi will create chaos at seven airports, including Frankfurt and Munich. This is another headache for travelers in Germany and Europe.