14 DAY TRIAL // After two days of being blacked out, all flight information screens of the Bristol Airport have finally been brought back up to live, following a ransomware attack which affected multiple computers on the airport's network.
The attack began on Friday morning with a ransom note being displayed on all flight info screens and, because Bristol Airport officials refused to pay the ransom, all affected systems were taken down and had to be manually restored by the airport's IT staff.
Moreover, during the ransomware attack, airport officials had to use whiteboards and posters to announce flight arrival and check-in information from Friday morning until the moment the digital screens were back live.
The airport managed to revive all their flight information displays on Sunday morning as stated in their initial announcement which promised that all systems will be back online over the weekend.
Bristol Airport refused to pay the ransom and restored functionality to all system manually
Once everything was back up again, Bristol Airport went to Twitter to thank all passengers for their patience throughout the two days the airport's operation was assailed and to announce that all digital screens are functioning for both arrivals and departures.
"Live flight information has been restored to digital screens in key locations in the terminal but is currently unavailable on our website. Flights remain unaffected by this technical issue. We apologise for any inconvenience," said a banner at the top of the Bristol Airport website when this article was published online.
Although the Bristol Airport has not yet issued any official details on how their IT infrastructure was compromised by the ransomware attack, an investigation is most probably going on behind curtains with the technical specifics of the attack to be released.
This is not the first time airports are being targeted by ransomware campaigns, with the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport shutting off its entire Wi-Fi service as a precautionary measure when the SamSam ransomware group held the City of Atlanta hostage for over a week.
We are grateful to passengers for their patience while we have been working to resolve issues with flight information this weekend. Digital screens are now live in arrivals and departures. Work will continue to restore complete site-wide coverage as soon as possible. — Bristol Airport (@BristolAirport) September 16, 2018
