Seattle Airport Blames Outages on Possible Cyberattack

The Port of Seattle, including the SEA Airport, is experiencing system outages likely caused by a cyberattack.

For the past three days, the Port of Seattle, including the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA Airport), has been struggling with system outages potentially caused by a cyberattack.

Impacting internet and internal systems, the outages began on August 24, affecting various services, the Port announced on X (formerly Twitter).

“Earlier this morning the Port of Seattle experienced certain system outages indicating a possible cyberattack. The Port isolated critical systems and is in the process of working to restore full service and does not have an estimated time for return,” the Port said on Saturday.

In addition to the SEA Airport, the outages impact maritime facilities, and travelers are encouraged to contact them by phone, the Port noted on a dedicated updates page.

Despite the disruption, travelers at the airport have been able to get through the check-in process and checkpoints, albeit with long delays, as operations have been performed manually.

“International travelers should give themselves extra time if coming to SEA. Some of our airline partners are currently providing manual bag tags and boarding passes,” the airport announced earlier today.

The incident mainly impacts Frontier, Spirit, Sun Country, JetBlue, and international airlines. The airport advises travelers to print their boarding passes at home or use mobile boarding passes, and to travel with carry-on luggage only, if possible.

WiFi at the airport is not working, the airport’s website is down, and services such as SEA Visitor Pass and the Airport Lost and Found are unavailable. Flight display boards within the airport are not working either.

The airport said it has been working with the authorities to remedy the incident and that it has made progress in restoring the affected systems to full service.

The airport did not provide details on the type of cyberattack it fell victim to and SecurityWeek has not seen any known ransomware groups claiming responsibility for it.

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