Dublin Airport’s operator, daa, has confirmed that no timeline has been established yet for resolving the issue caused by a Europe-wide cyber attack last weekend, which has disrupted check-in and boarding systems in Terminal 2, reports RTE.
The issue first emerged on Saturday morning and affected several major European airports, including Heathrow, Brussels, and Berlin.
In an update issued this afternoon, daa stated that operations at Dublin Airport were “moving well” today, though some airlines are still relying on manual alternatives, reports RTE.
They noted that a timeline for resolving the issue has not been provided, meaning that passengers could still experience delays at check-in and bag drop counters.
The head of the National Cyber Security Centre has said the origin of the malware used in the attack is known, but the specific individuals or group responsible remain unidentified, reports RTE.
Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, Richard Browne explained that locating the group behind the cyber attack would be challenging.
“We have all of the technical details from the incident, and we know, or we believe we know, who the actual group is. Precisely where they’re based is always going to be interesting and difficult to try and work out,” he said, reports RTE.
Mr Browne went on to say: “The other thing to keep in mind here is that we know the malware strain used. So this is the wholesaler or the reseller of the malware, we don’t know who actually conducted the incident,” reports RTE.
He continued: “This will be an affiliate, basically a customer of the ransomware family and they will go out and actually conduct the incident. Who this group is, we don’t know yet,” reports RTE.
According to Mr Browne, even with cooperation between public agencies and private cybersecurity firms, there has been an increase in cyber attacks targeting large organisations.
“In the last couple of years, we’d started to see a slowdown and say in the pricing in the scale of instance, we weren’t seeing as many very large incidents,” Mr Browne said, reports RTE.
Travellers are being urged to check directly with their airline for the most up-to-date information regarding their flights.
This incident is the latest in a wave of cyber attacks aimed at governments and private companies globally, affecting sectors such as healthcare, defence, retail, and the automotive industry.
One recent example was a cyber breach at luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover, which led to production being temporarily halted.
The ongoing disruption has been linked to MUSE software developed by Collins Aerospace, which supplies systems to a number of airlines operating in airports worldwide, according to airport sources, reports RTE.
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