A Russian hacker group claimed responsibility for attacking more than a dozen websites Monday morning.
No systems related to air traffic control, airline communications, or transportation security were targeted.
It raises the concern that America is a target for future cyber attacks, even though it did not disrupt air travel.
Early in the morning, the attacks were reported by the Port Authority to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
According to Port Authority spokesperson, their website was compromised for 15 minutes in a coordinated cyber attack on U.S. airports.
Approximately 15 minutes after the breach was detected by cybersecurity, Port Authority notified other airports and federal agencies.
After LGA was restored, other airports around the country were targeted, including Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, LAX in Los Angeles and O’Hare in Chicago.
“We are pretty clear its a Russian cyber group that claimed responsibility, we are asking our authorities to confirm who did it and then take the appropriate strong action so the Russians know they cannot get away with this,” said Sen. Charles Schumer.
Both the FBI and CISA would only say their agency is aware of the incident.
There is an investigation underway into the possible connection between the Russian cyber group Killnet and the Ukraine war.
“It is outrageous that Putin can now say he is entitled to retaliate against the Ukrainian people after his brutal war against them,” Schumer said.
Currently, engineers and programmers are working to close the backdoors that allowed the attacks in order to prevent more severe attacks in the future.
“We are going to find who you are and we have ways of disabling you permanently in terms of your ability to hack, we are going to do it,” Schumer said.
A number of airport websites, including LaGuardia, have been restored to service after Russian hackers took them down.
Federal officials are investigating.