Italy’s cyber security agency reported that hackers momentarily took down about ten official websites on Saturday, including those of Milan’s two airports and the Foreign Ministry.
TakeAway Points:
- Hackers targeted around ten official websites in Italy on Saturday, including the websites of the Foreign Ministry and Milan’s two airports, putting them out of action temporarily.
- Japan Airlines (JAL) announced on Thursday that its systems were back to normal and that same-day ticket sales had resumed after a cyberattack caused several domestic and international flights to be delayed.
- Apple has asked to participate in Google’s upcoming U.S. antitrust trial over online search.
Pro-Russian hacker attack
The pro-Russian hacker group Noname057(16) claimed the cyber attack on Telegram, saying Italy’s “Russophobes get a well-deserved cyber response.”
A spokesperson for Italy’s cyber security agency said it was plausible that the so-called “Distributed Denial of Service” (DDoS) attack could be linked to the pro-Russian group.
In such attacks, hackers attempt to flood a network with unusually high volumes of data traffic in order to paralyse it.
The spokesperson said the agency provided quick assistance to the institutions and firms targeted and that the attack’s impact was “mitigated” in less than two hours.
The cyber attack has not caused any disruptions to flights at Milan’s Linate and Malpensa airports, a spokesperson for SEA, the company that manages them, said.
While the websites were inaccessible, the airports’ mobile apps continued to function, the SEA spokesperson added.
Japan Airlines systems back to normal after cyberattack delayed flights
Japan Airlines (JAL) said on Thursday its systems returned to normal, with same-day ticket sales resuming, after a cyberattack delayed some domestic and international flights.
The attack began at 7:24 a.m., affecting internal and external systems, JAL said earlier. It temporarily shut down a router that was causing malfunctions and suspended ticket sales for flights departing on Thursday.
No customer information was leaked, however, the company said, and it suffered no damage from computer viruses.
ANA Holdings, Japan’s other major air carrier, saw no signs of an attack on its systems, a spokesperson said.
American Airlines briefly grounded all flights for an hour this week, disrupting travel for thousands on Christmas Eve due to a technical glitch involving network hardware.
Apple seeks to defend Google’s billion-dollar payments in search case
Apple has requested to take part in Google’s impending web search antitrust trial in the United States.
According to the report, it cannot rely on Google to defend revenue-sharing agreements that send the iPhone maker billions of dollars each year for making Google the default search engine on its Safari browser.
Apple does not plan to build its own search engine to compete with Alphabet’s Google, whether or not the payments continue, the company’s lawyers said in court papers filed in Washington on Monday. Apple received an estimated $20 billion from its agreement with Google in 2022 alone.
Apple wants to call witnesses to testify at an April trial. Prosecutors will seek to show Google must take several measures, including selling its Chrome web browser and potentially its Android operating system, to restore competition in online search.
“Google can no longer adequately represent Apple’s interests; Google must now defend against a broad effort to break up its business units,” Apple said.
The Department of Justice’s prosecution of Google is a landmark case that could reshape how users find online information.
Google has proposed to loosen its default agreements with browser developers, mobile device manufacturers and wireless carriers, but not to end its agreements to share a portion of ad revenue Google generates from search.
