United States Customs and Border Protection(CBP) outage on Monday has caused a lot of chaos for four hours at Airports across the whole of United States. As it was the end of the holiday season the rush was huge at the airports. And adding to the frustration of the airport staff and the travelers was the Customers Processing System outage likely triggered by a cyber attack.
Air travelers who were traveling between 5 Pm to 9 Pm had to face a tough time during this period. They turned to social media to vent their anger about the long lines caused due to the outage. Moreover, the outage affected Miami and Atlanta airports the most causing utter chaos to the passenger flock.
According to a CNN report, the issue lasted for an hour or so at some airports. But a CBP officer at Miami reported that the breakdown of the systems at Miami airport lasted for four hours resulting in major chaos due to the presence of some high profile celebrities belonging to Media, Entertainment and Political worlds.
CNN reported that the outage left 3000 passengers stranded at the airport, as their entry was barred due to security checks. Furthermore, the outage is said to have caused a delay to more than 30 international flights.
Miami International Staff had a very tough time in containing the crowd. But the support staff were polite and helpful as they tried their best in offering comfort to the passengers by setting up fans and handing out water bottles for free of cost.
Immediately the twitter buzzed with news that the MIA Immigration system was hacked and the entire network will be down for almost 24 hours.
But this did not happen in reality as the IT staff at the airport quickly switched over to the backup systems as a part of their business continuity planning.
Other airports affected included Harts field-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Fort Lauder dale-Hollywood International Airport, and Los Angeles International Airport.
The Kennedy International Airport, and Newark Liberty International airports customers and Border protection systems were down for 45 minutes.
As per our sources, only a hack on the main server of CBP could have caused such a high profane outage.
Remember, they are some state-sponsored hacking groups on the prowl which are interested in causing chaos in developed nations such as UK and USA.
As outages of larger scale could delay thousands of flights and cause immense trouble to millions of passengers, one such group might have targeted the database of United States Customs and Border Protection which resulted in an equipment failure.
More details are awaited and will be updated shortly!
