British police have arrested a man in his forties in connection with a cyber attack that took down a critical check-in and boarding system at several European airports, including London Heathrow, Brussels, and Berlin Brandenburg, on Saturday.
Collins Aerospace, the American supplier of the third-party software known as MUSE is still trying to rebuild the system after an initial patch that was due to be deployed on Monday was found to be corrupted.
The attack took place late on Friday night, affecting airlines that use the MUSE system for check-in and boarding processes. Airport staff had to resort to manual processes that led to long delays and some cancellations.
Brussels Airport has been the worst-affected airport and ordered airlines to cancel half of all arrivals and departures on Sunday and Monday over fears of overcrowding in the terminals.
On Wednesday, Brussels Airport reduced the restrictions to 10% of all flights, while London Heathrow and Berlin Brandenburg have been able to remain fully operational.
Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Wednesday that it had arrested a suspect in connection with the cyber attack during an operation that took place in West Sussex yesterday evening.
The man was arrested on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences but has since been released on conditional bail.
NCA Deputy Director, Paul Foster, who is head of NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said following the arrest: “Although this arrest is a positive step, the investigation into this incident is in its early stages and remains ongoing.”
Heathrow Airport told staffers in an internal memo that Collins Aerospace had been working overnight to fix the software, but that the issues were still very much ongoing.
On Monday, Collins had developed a patch for the problem, but when this was tested by airlines, it was discovered that the software was still corrupted. As a result, Collins has been forced into a time-consuming process of completely rebuilding software environments for airlines.
It remains unclear when the incident will be resolved.
