Wi-Fi Returns to Atlanta Airport After Cyber Attack

After more than a week out of service, officials from Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport announced Wi-Fi connectivity at the facility was turned back on Monday.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the world’s busiest airport was able to turn its free Wi-Fi back on for customers at around 5:30 p.m. local time after a cyber-attack led to a 10-day blackout.

The official Twitter account of the Atlanta airport shared the good news Monday and thanked passengers dealing with the lack of Wi-Fi for their patience:

The free WiFi system at #ATL is up and running. To all – thank you for your patience.

— Atlanta Airport (@ATLairport) April 2, 2018

Though the cyber-attack last month was against the city of Atlanta, airport officials decided to shut down their Wi-Fi and flight information systems in order to protect sensitive data that could have been impacted.

The March 22 attack targeted the encryption of city data, causing outages for several government computer systems. The Wi-Fi shut down caused the airport’s website to run slower and impacted the accuracy of security wait times and flight information online.

“While we aren’t directly affected by the cyber-attack, we are being abundantly cautious and have taken these systems offline,” Atlanta airport spokesman Reese McCranie told AJC.com when the attack first occurred.

The cyber attackers originally asked for a ransom of $51,000, but it was unclear if city officials paid or if the issues were remedied in another way.

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