Politics 3 min read By Arthur Ellington
FAA halts nationwide flights after telecom fault, no sign of cyberattack
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop after a communications problem, delaying or cancelling thousands of flights. The White House situation room and national security agencies were activated, but officials say there is no evidence of hacking.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday after a communications problem was detected, halting departures across the United States for several hours. Thousands of flights were delayed or cancelled. The disruption was serious enough that the White House situation room and the wider national security apparatus were activated, although officials have said there is no evidence of a cyberattack or other malicious activity.
The stop was triggered at a remote site where a contractor working for L3Harris was switching a line from copper to fibre. According to officials, the changeover flooded the routers with more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds. That overload disrupted some radar feeds, and the FAA halted traffic because safety could not be assured while the feeds were degraded. The affected location was isolated and taken offline, and the system was later recovered.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford briefed reporters on Saturday and said the problem was not cyber-related. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that FBI, intelligence and Defense officials had been on call during the incident and that there was no online chatter suggesting a hacking attempt. The FBI also sent staff to the affected facilities to investigate what had happened.
The root cause remains undetermined. Investigators have not yet established whether user or installer error during the line switch, or a faulty router, was responsible. Until that question is answered, the FAA has not presented a definitive explanation for the failure.
L3Harris owns the legacy telecommunications network that the agency relies on and serves as its prime contractor. The department is building a new architecture with AT&T, Verizon and Lumen. Duffy said he would hold contractors accountable for the failure. L3Harris had no immediate comment when the reporting was published.
The incident comes amid heightened concern about cyber threats. Recent attacks have hit European freezers and United States military bases, and last month a wave of cyberattacks known as "Black October" drew attention. A rush to patch a PHP vulnerability, which affects about 70 per cent of websites, added to the pressure on security teams. Iran has threatened cyber retaliation and the cutting of undersea cables after United States strikes.
A separate Microsoft outage, which affected email and collaboration services, occurred in the same period. Microsoft says it has found no link between that outage and the FAA disruption.
Source: fortune.com
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