The FBI does not believe the telecommunications outage behind the nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop was caused by a cyberattack or criminal activity and is examining whether a software update triggered the failure, Bloomberg reported. The FAA told airlines the outage stemmed from a network router problem that began at Chicago Midway International Airport and spread across the country, CNN reported. L3Harris Technologies shares fell as much as 5% in after hours trading after CBS News reported that an update to the contractor’s private air traffic control communications network caused the system to reboot and crash.
Air Space Intelligence, the developer of the SMART AI routing tool that the FAA expanded to all 22 regional air traffic control centers on Nov 10, said the ground stop was “not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC.” Microsoft and Verizon also said they saw no indication their networks or services were involved, while a spokesperson for US Northern Command and NORAD told The New York Times there was no evidence of nefarious action by domestic or foreign actors.
