Defense IT issue behind Eindhoven Airport outage; Emergency services also affected

A malfunction in the Ministry of Defense’s IT system caused the problems at Eindhoven Airport on Wednesday morning, NOS reports. It is also behind outages at various government services. The emergency services are also experiencing problems with their communication and alarm systems as a result. The emergency number 1-1-2 is still accessible.

Eindhoven Airport is the civilian part of the Eindhoven military airbase and, therefore, falls under Defense’s management. Not a single flight has landed at or departed from Eindhoven Airport so far on Wednesday, leaving thousands of frustrated travelers stranded. A spokesperson previously told NOS that the airport discovered a disruption that made air traffic impossible when it was starting up for the first flights this morning.

The cause of the malfunction at Defense is still unclear. The Ministry of Home Affairs said it was still mapping out the scope and impact of the outage.

The National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) wrote on X that various users of the data center and their IT services have been affected, making it impossible for the government organization to send out security advice.

A spokesperson for Veiligheidsregio Utrecht, the security office that manages the region’s emergency services, told NOS that the outage was causing issues with the P2000 alarm system and the C2000 communication system, impacting emergency services nationwide. The outage was first noted at around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the spokesperson said. Emergency services are now communicating by telephone call and SMS.

Cops on the street use C2000 to communicate with each other and the control room. Other emergency services, including the Koninklijke Marechaussee, the Coast Guard, and municipal enforcers, also use the network and have also reported being affected by the outage. Control rooms use P2000 to call the emergency services, including the fire brigade, police, and ambulance services.

DigiD is also experiencing a malfunction, but it is not yet clear whether it has the same cause. People can access the service, but can’t receive an SMS code to log in with.

The Netherlands has had several dramatic issues related to information technology disruptions in recent years. Such information systems outages have forced passenger and freight train systems to go out of service, and Schiphol Airport was among many affected in the Netherlands by the CrowdStrike and Microsoft Windows.

Additionally, cybersecurity and the prospect of attacks by foreign state organizations and cybercriminals has also been an issue of serious concern. Cyber security is among the issues most disconcerting to Dutch citizens, and the country’s National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) said late last year that it was acutely looking for signs of Russian espionage or sabotage attempts on Dutch infrastructure.

Further, pro-Russian hackers alleged to have ties to that country’s political leaders have been accused of being behind a DDoS attack that took down the websites of several Dutch ports in June 2023, government websites a month earlier, and an attempted hack of the Dutch gas terminal in 2022. There have also been a series of ransomware attacks on universities, hospitals, businesses, the national football association, and other organizations that were extorted into paying hefty sums of money after their data was either stolen or encrypted.

The Netherlands has also been embroiled in a diplomatic row with China over allegations that a Chinese state actor attempted to carry out a form of cyber espionage targeting the Dutch Ministry of Defense. Dutch military intelligence service MIVD announced earlier this year the discovery of sophisticated malware from the Chinese firm on an isolated military computer network.

The malware, named Coathanger, was discovered last year. China denied any involvement in the matter.