[German]In the Netherlands, a network malfunction in the data center of the Dutch Ministry of Defense have had drastical results. As a result, several Dutch authorities wasn't able to use their IT systems anymore. And even more serious: Eindhoven Airport was down for several hours on August 28, 2024. I immediately thought "was that a cyberattack" – but from what I know, this has been denied. Now the malfunction is fixed and everything is back in operation.
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Data center malfunction in the Netherlands
All air traffic at Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands has been suspended this morning (August 28, 2024). The reason was IT problems – Amsterdam Airport was not affected by the disruption. At the same time, there are also IT problems at the Dutch Coast Guard and the Dutch Gendarmerie, which is also responsible for border protection.
The airport's website states at 2:30 p.m. CET, that air traffic has already resumed. At 9:00 a.m. Central European Time, it was stated that "Due to a disruption at Eindhoven Airport, no air traffic is possible. It was still unclear when the disruption would be resolved and what the cause was.
At around 11:00 a.m. local time, it was then stated: "Due to problems with the IT networks of the Ministry of Defense, air traffic is not possible at Eindhoven Airport. Eindhoven Airport is served from Eindhoven military airfield. At 11:30, it was even communicated that no more flights would be possible until 17:00. However, this was revised at 14:15, as flight operations resumed.
Spontaneously, I asked myself what could have happened – the term cyber attack immediately came to my mind, of course. The Associated Press only has a brief report, but an ad hoc announcement (German) on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange has shed some light on the situation.
The cause is simply a malfunction in the data center of the Dutch Ministry of Defense, which is causing quite a stir in the Netherlands today, Wednesday, August 28, 2024. Nothing worked at Eindhoven Airport this morning (see above). However, all Dutch institutions that use the Ministry of Defense network for their IT systems were affected by this outage. Here is the list:
- Eindhoven Airport
- the Dutch Ministry of Justice,
- the Dutch Coast Guard
- the Dutch gendarmerie responsible for border protection
and numerous municipalities.
Eindhoven Airport is the civilian part of Eindhoven Military Airport and is therefore under the administration of the Ministry of Defense. As I read here, it was shut down yesterday evening at around 10.30 pm.
According to the Dutch National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), public safety in the Netherlands was not at risk. Government circles told ANP that a cyber attack was not currently suspected. They said that intensive work was being done to repair the damage.
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