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‘Sustained’ Cyber Attack Forces Flightradar24 Offline

‘Sustained’ Cyber Attack Forces Flightradar24 Offline

Flightradar24.com, the popular flight-tracking website, is experiencing “sustained attacks” on its system and remains unavailable for users as engineers try to fix the issue.

“Attacks on our systems continue and while we were able to bring services back for a short time, significant instability due to the sustained attacks has forced us to refocus our efforts to mitigate them,” the website said in a Twitter post. “Flightradar24 remains unavailable to all users at this time.”

No further information was available. Flightradar24 doesn’t have an estimate on when its services will resume as the attacks are preventing it from successfully serving legitimate traffic, a spokesman said in an emailed response to queries.

The website is among many popular tools and applications that allow users to track commercial and private jets as they fly, identifying the model and age, speed, weather and any distress signal to control towers. They are often the first source of information on airline emergencies and disasters, or even points of reference when a pilot illustrates something in the sky with a flight path.

Flightradar24, which started in 2006, says it has more than 2 million daily users and over 40 million downloads of its mobile application. It tracks 180,000 flights every day and its clients include Airbus SE and Boeing Co.

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