Crime

The website of Norwich International Airport has been reportedly hit by cyber-attack, officials at the airport have confirmed.

Norwich airport general manager Richard Pace was quoted by BBC News as saying: "The airport has been made aware of a cyber-attack on the website. The matter has been reported to police and we’re assisting them with their ongoing enquiries.

"I can categorically state that because the website is hosted by a third party at no time was the hacker able to access airport operational systems."

Pace added that the hacker accessed a "standalone website which did not compromise operational systems."

"I can categorically state that because the website is hosted by a third party at no time was the hacker able to access airport operational systems."

He further noted that the hacker obtained an old list contacts registered on the websites media centre and no physical security or operationally sensitive data has been affected.

According to the news agency, the cyber-attack was carried out by an individual who claims to have hacked the website to show its ‘vulnerability’.

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The hacker, who identified himself using a pseudonym, His Royal Gingerness (HRG), told BBC: "I work in the tech sector. I did it more just to see if I could. I do this mostly to see what vulnerability there are in modern systems."

HRG had not only sneaked into the website but also accessed names and email addresses from a database and mailed them back to the airport officials to warn them of the vulnerability of their website.

The hacker claimed that though the airport administration mailed him back a month later stating that the issue had been resolved, but it was still the same and it took him a couple of minutes to breach the websites security again.

Information Commissioner spokeswoman said that no data breach was reported with their office, although ‘we believe that serious breaches should be reported’.

In 2011, a hacker was reported to have obtained personal information contained in the airport’s job applications’ database.


Image: Norwich International Airport. Photo: courtesy of Lis Burke.