Flightradar24, a global flight tracking service, is facing a Dedicated Denial of Service attack (DDOS).
The online platform offers real-time tracking of thousands of aircraft worldwide. However, it has been experiencing a sustained attack for over 14 hours, a situation they communicated to users online.
“We are aware of some users experiencing various issues with Flightradar24’s website and mobile apps. This is part of an ongoing DDoS attack that has been in progress for around 14 hours. We are working hard to mitigate its effects,” read part of the post.
Users on both the mobile and web platforms may experience various issues. Due to the DDoS attack, some users are unable to track particular flights in real-time; this is even for premium users.
On X, one affected user posted, “I just paid for premium today so I could track my son’s flight, and 5 minutes in, your servers go down.”
Some users can observe the flight’s current position, but they cannot access supplementary data, including the flight’s origin, destination, owner of the aircraft, or its estimated arrival time.
Searching up aircraft registrations on the website is also slow, while some users can’t find their bookmarks. Single playback, among other services, is available, but with inconsistent accessibility across users.
In extreme circumstances, the app shows no flight is flying in their country. For example, there is a user who could not see any flight within the west coast of USA. This is impossible given The United States is the most significant domestic aviation market globally.
Flightradar24 has not indicated where the attack is coming from or why the platform could be targeted. Based on the last statement issued, the platform is working to mitigate the effects of the attack.
