Swissport International, a provider of aviation services, has announced a ransomware attack that has disrupted its IT infrastructure and services, causing aircraft delays. The company offers cargo handling, security, maintenance, cleaning, and lounge hospitality services for 310 airports in 50 countries. It transports 282 million people and 4.8 million tons of cargo every year, making it an important link in the worldwide air travel circuit.
Today, the company tweeted that the incident has been mostly confined, and systems are being repaired to restore regular operation. At the time of writing, Swissport’s website returns an error while loading. It implies that the firm’s IT staff is currently working with ransomware-related issues. A spokesperson for Zurich Airport, one of Swissport’s clients, told Der Spiegel that the hack began at 6 a.m. on Thursday and resulted in minor delays of three to 20 minutes for 22 flights yesterday.
Although delays are unavoidable in some situations, Swissport informed the magazine that ground services for aircraft could continue even without IT system assistance. At this time, there are few details regarding the attack, and its unknown which ransomware group is behind it or whether they seized firm data during the break-in. As of now, no ransomware gangs have claimed responsibility for the attack on Swissport or associated leak sites.
This incident comes on the heels of another one that hit a European corporation this week. Hackers started an attack on Oiltanking three days ago, disrupting gasoline deliveries across Germany. A hack disrupted operations at one of Belgium’s main oil ports yesterday, prompting the country’s authorities to launch an inquiry. Although none of these operations appear to have caused significant harm, they serve as a warning that, despite recent law enforcement indictments, ransomware gangs are still quite active.
