Websites for Hartsfield-Jackson, UPS possibly targeted by hackers
A hand on the keyboard is seen with binary code displayed on a laptop screen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on August 17, 2021. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
ATLANTA - It appears that the websites for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and UPS, which is based in Sandy Springs were targeted early Friday morning by hackers.
According to a tweet by BetterCyber, the airport's website was attacked by the hacker group "Anonymous Sudan."
UPS acknowledged they were having an issue in response to a customer but did not provide an explanation at that time. They have since responded to a request from FOX 5 Atlanta and said that they experienced a "relatively brief disruption to some services" but the site was "fully recovered" as of 7:01 a.m. and there was "no impact" to their operations globally. They also said they are investigating to determine the root cause and do not have more information to share.
Anonymous Sudan is the same group of hackers that are taking responsibility for knocking out power to cities across Israel on Thursday, including Tel Aviv and Beersheba.
According to a tweet by Daily Dark Web, the group has declared "cyber war" on the United States.
In October, 14 major airports were attacked by Russian-speaking hackers, including Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and Chicago O'Hare International Airport. .
The cyber-attacks or Denial of Service (DoS) are designed to disrupt systems that are used by people to check flight timings and other information. A DoS attack is when a website's server is flooded with so many requests, that the website ceases to function properly.
In December, Atlanta airport officials say a monitoring service was employed to prevent such attacks.
Hackers have also been targeting healthcare providers recently, including an attack this week on Aspen Dental in Florida.
Flight and airport operations are usually not affected, and the attacks are mostly an inconvenience to passengers or others needing flight information or airport information.
It appears that the airport's website was fully functional again by 8 a.m.
FOX 5 Atlanta has reached out to Hartsfield-Jackson for a statement. Check back for an update.