On October 10, 2022, websites at a number of airports around the U.S. simultaneously suffered denial-of-service attacks at the hands of the Russian “hacktivist” group Killnet. Major airports, such as LaGuardia, Orlando International, LAX, O’Hare and Midway, and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, saw their websites go down, though operations were not directly impacted.

In an interview broadcast the following day on Fox 5, New York City’s local affiliate, Dr. Justin Cappos, associate professor of computer science and engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering suggested the attackers could have been “just trying to get some attention.”  He points out that, “Russia, so far with everything that’s been happening with sanctions in Ukraine, has actually done surprisingly little in terms of cyber attacks on its normal targets.” So, the airport hacks could have been just a way saying, “Hey, you know, we still have some capabilities here — and some of these groups that are affiliated with us, but maybe not directly under control of the Kremlin, are a little bit off the leash.”

You can watch the news clip here.