DAY FIVE: Brussels Zaventem asks airlines to cancel 10pc of flights as fallout from cyber attack continues

The ransomware attack on Collins Aerospace’s Muse software, first detected on Friday, is continuing to disrupt check-in and boarding systems at European airports. Brussels Zaventem has asked airlines to cancel 10pc of flights on Wednesday.

Brussels Zaventem previosuyly cancelled 138 of 276 departing flights on Monday and reported 86pc of flights delayed by Sunday afternoon, with 40 outbound and 23 inbound flights scrapped on Tuesday.

Like Dublin, airports like Heathrow, Berlin Brandenburg switched to manual processes, causing queues. Heathrow restored automated systems for half its airlines by Sunday evening.

The EU’s ENISA classified the breach as ransomware on 22 September, with law enforcement investigating, while Collins Aerospace works to restore functionality without confirming ransom payments.

Richard Browne Director of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) shared: “We have all of the technical details from the incident, and we know, or we believe we know, who the actual group is. Precisely where they’re based is always going to be interesting and difficult to try and work out.”

“The other thing to keep in mind here is that we know the malware strain used. So this is the wholesaler or the reseller of the malware, we don’t know who actually conducted the incident.”

“This will be an affiliate, basically a customer of the ransomware family and they will go out and actually conduct the incident. Who this group is, we don’t know yet. In the last couple of years, we’d started to see a slowdown and say in the pricing in the scale of instance, we weren’t seeing as many very large incidents.”