How the Kelowna airport is handling the pro-Hamas, anti-Trump hack

Travellers at the Kelowna International Airport had pro-Hamas and anti-Trump messages foisted on them Tuesday evening when someone hacked the public address and flight display systems.

The messages went onto video screens and blared over the loudspeaker but the airport responded and shut the hack down.

“We have a response protocol dealing with cybersecurity and that’s what we activated. The messaging wasn’t on for very long. It was decoupled very quickly from our PA system and the FIDS, flight information system, was shut down,” the airport’s CEO Sam Samaddar told iNFOnews.ca.

The posts show screens at the Airport saying, “Israel lost the war, Hamas won,” and calling U.S. President Donald Trump a pig.

Other videos depicted slogans being played over the airport’s public announcement system.

The airport has confirmed the incident on its website, adding that staff successfully removed the unauthorized messaging by a “third party.”

“Our immediate concern after that was to understand the messaging and we did a joint threat and risk assessment with the RCMP and Transport Canada. And we deemed that the threat was not specific to aviation or the airport,” Samaddar said.

The Victoria International Airport, the Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania were hacked as well.

The hack got into a cloud-based third-party software provider, so it wasn’t someone plugged into the airport. The Victoria airport confirmed its hack was also through a cloud-based software.

Samaddar said the systems in the airport are disconnected. The flight display and public announcement system is separate from the air traffic control system and other systems.

The airport has IT specialists in-house, works with specialists and develops its cybersecurity alongside other airports.

He said the airport is required by law to have a cybersecurity plan and this is an example of the response plan working effectively.

“When you look at the architecture, the response plan, the cybersecurity pieces, those things work,” he said.

The hack is still being investigated and analyzed by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and Transport Canada.

Samaddar said it’s too early to say exactly what changes are going to be made to the cybersecurity system, but the airport is going to continue to operate safely.

“We continue to operate a safe operation. The fact that what occurred yesterday didn’t infiltrate our entire operating systems, one very localized area, but a minor to our operations,” he said. “What we learned from this, absolutely, are the things that we’ll be able to tighten up as a consequence of this.”