Centre confirms cyberattack hit seven major airports, GPS spoofing reported
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The Centre has confirmed that seven major airports across India were affected by cyberattacks on Monday.
The incident included spoofing of the global positioning system, or GPS, at the Delhi airport, where pilots approaching the runway reported interference.
According to the report, India maintains a Minimum Operating Network (MON) of ground-based navigation and surveillance systems to preserve safe operations. This system acts as a backup when satellite-based navigation faces disruption and is used in aviation networks worldwide.
Along with Delhi, the airports in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru were also impacted. The government said no flights were disrupted despite the GPS spoofing.
The confirmation comes soon after a separate aviation issue involving Airbus A320 aircraft. A software upgrade was required for the planes, which caused global flight disruptions a few days earlier. Around 388 flights in India were affected on Saturday. By Sunday, all Indian airlines completed the necessary software updates, making the aircraft ready for commercial service again.
These upgrades were carried out at airline bases in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata. On Friday, the European Aviation Safety Authority issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive about the potential problem. The European regulator said Airbus had asked operators to install a serviceable Elevator Aileron Computer (ELAC) in the affected A320 aircraft.