European airports work to bring check-in back to normal after cyberattack

Airport disruptions that affected automated check-in systems in recent days were caused by a ransomware attack, the EU's cybersecurity agency said on Monday, highlighting the growing risks of such attacks to critical infrastructure and industries.

Several of Europe's biggest airports still faced disruptions on Monday after hackers knocked out automated check-in systems provided by Collins Aerospace, affecting dozens of flights and thousands of passengers since Friday.

"Law enforcement is involved to investigate" malicious software that locks up data until the victim pays to have access restored, the ENISA agency said in a statement, without saying where the ransomware attack originated from.

Governments and companies have been the targets of cyberattacks in recent months, including luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover, which had to pause production as a result.

Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at British cybersecurity firm Sophos, said there have been more ransomware attempts targeting higher-profile victims because of the attention they bring, but such attacks weren't becoming more frequent.

"Disruptive attacks are becoming more visible in Europe, but visibility doesn't necessarily equal frequency," he told Reuters.

"Truly large-scale, disruptive attacks that spill into the physical world remain the exception rather than the rule."

A survey of some 1,000 companies by German industry group Bitkom found that ransomware was the most common form of cyberattack, with one in seven companies having paid a ransom.

Collins Aerospace said on Monday that it was working with the affected airports, including Brussels and London Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, and was in the final stages of completing updates to help restore full functionality.

"Airlines across Heathrow have implemented contingencies whilst their supplier Collins Aerospace works to resolve an issue with their airline check-in systems at airports across the world," a Heathrow spokesperson told Reuters.

Berlin airport, which was facing higher passenger numbers than usual on Monday due to the Berlin Marathon, still did not have its check-in systems restored and reported delays of over an hour for departures.

One passenger described the boarding process as akin to the early decades of commercial air travel, with handwritten boarding passes.

Brussels Airport was using iPads and laptops to check passengers in online. Of roughly 550 departing and arriving flights, 60 had to be cancelled on Monday, it said.

Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium showed Brussels airport still had a high rate of cancellations, with 29 flights cancelled in total and "only 42% of flights departing within one hour of the scheduled departure time".

Dublin Airport was experiencing "minimal impact" and had some manual processes in place.