Radical Islamic terrorism isn’t the only major threat to global stability, lest we forget.
Independent, anonymous hacker groups are becoming more the norm these days as global interconnectivity has increasingly created a playground for even the novice programmer.
This weekend British holiday trips were thrown into chaos at airports around the UK after a hacker group shutdown all of British Airways computer systems preventing everything from check-in to flight systems from working.
This is a problem that isn’t going away, and it could threaten even to take down vital national networks.
Here’s more from the Sun…
BRITISH Airways have cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick airports until 6pm after their computer systems were brought down across the entire world.
Angry passengers on social media have said that their flights aren’t taking off, that there are huge queues at check-in, and that they can’t use the app or website.
There were reports of BA staff telling disgruntled passengers trying to get away for the Bank Holiday weekend that the company was under cyber attack but this has been denied by the airline.
Passenger Jo Josson said: “Officials are telling us there has been a cyber attack against BA’s systems. Even the tannoy is affected.”
Another, Michele Andjel, said a British Airways flight captain announced: “It appears to be a cyber attack.”
In a statement, BA said: “We have experienced a major IT system failure that is causing very severe disruption to our flight operations worldwide.
“The terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick have become extremely congested and we have cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick before 6pm UK time today, so please do not come to the airports.”
They added: “We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience this is causing our customers and we are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.”
