Flight cancellations and large delays are expected after an overnight cyberattack at a European airport.
Brussels Airport in Belgium announced it was hit by a cyberattack on Friday night.
A statement released by the airport said the target of the attack was “the service provider for the check-in and boarding systems affecting several European airports”.
As a result of the attack, “only manual check-in and boarding is possible”.
The statement added: “This has a large impact on the flight schedule and will unfortunately cause delays and cancellations of flights.”
It is understood that the service provider is working to resolve the problems.
The airport has advised anyone with a flight on Saturday to arrive in plenty of time to allow for delays at check-in.
The suggestion given for flights within the Schengen area is to arrive two hours in advance, and for those outside the Schengen area, to arrive three hours early.
The three runway airport is the largest in Belgium, and so far this year has handled nearly 14 million passengers.
According to data released in June by Thales, an aerospace company, there was a 600 per cent rise in cyberattacks in the aviation sector in one year.
Ivan Fontarensky, CTO of Cyber Detection and Response at Thales, said: “The aviation industry has become a digital battlefield with significant economic and geopolitical interests at stake.”
