Airbus hit by series of cyber-attacks — security sources

PARIS — European aerospace giant Airbus has been hit by a series of attacks by hackers who have targeted its suppliers in their search for technical secrets, security sources told AFP, adding they suspected a China link.

There have been four major attacks on Airbus in the last 12 months, according to two security sources involved in investigating the hacking.

The group has long been considered a tempting target because of the cutting-edge technologies that have made it one of the world's biggest commercial plane manufacturers, as well as a strategic military supplier.

In January, it admitted to a security incident that had "resulted in unauthorised access to data", but people with knowledge of the attacks outlined a concerted and far bigger operation over the last year.

Hackers have targeted British enginemaker Rolls-Royce and the French technology consultancy and supplier Expleo, as well as two other French contractors working for Airbus that AFP was unable to identify.

Romain Bottan of the aerospace security specialist BoostAerospace said the attacks showed that hackers were seeking out weak links in the chain to compromise Airbus's systems.

"Very large companies are very well protected, it's hard to pirate them, so smaller companies are a better target," he said.

VPN entry point 

The attack against Expleo was discovered at the end of last year but the group's system had been compromised long before, one of the sources told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"It was very sophisticated and targeted the VPN which connected the company to Airbus," the source said.

A VPN, or virtual private network, is an encrypted network that enables employees to access company systems remotely. 

Airbus suppliers sometimes operate in a VPN linking them with colleagues at the plane-maker.

The other attacks used the same methods, with the first of them detected at a British subsidiary of Expleo, formerly known as Assystem, as well as Rolls-Royce, which provides engines for Airbus planes.

According to several of the sources, the hackers appeared to be interested in technical documents linked to the certification process for different parts of Airbus aircraft.

They also said that several stolen documents were related to the engines of the Airbus military transport plane A400M, which has some of the most powerful propeller engines in the world.

One of the sources said the hackers were also interested in the propulsion systems for the Airbus A350 passenger jet, as well as its avionics systems controlling the plane.

None of the sources who spoke to AFP could formally identify the perpetrators of the attacks, pointing to the extreme difficulty in obtaining evidence and identification in any cyber attack.