Archetyp Links

A wave of computer attacks has brought some of the main airports of Europe to its knees in the last few days.Heathrow, Brussels and Berlin had to deal with check-in check-in systems and blocked luggage, causing a domino effect of delays and cancellations that left thousands of passengers on the ground. The problem?A vulnerability in the systems provided by Collins Aerospace, the company which, and perhaps it is no coincidence, has just won the contract with NATO for one of its most sensitive technologies: the EWPBM platform for electronic war. The technology in the sights of hackers Behind this acronym as a tonguement, there is the Electronic Warfare Planning and Battle Management: it is the digital brain that coordinates all military electronic war operations, from planning to field execution.The software collects data from intelligence, operations and digital systems to create what experts call a "Recognized Electromagnetic Picture" - a real -time map of the electromagnetic spectrum that helps commanders to identify threats such as jamming, spoofing and enemy intrusions. In essence, it is the system that allows the soldiers to "see" and contrast the invisible wars that are fought in radio waves and digital signals. The giant behind the technology Collins Aerospace is part of RTX, born in 2020 from the merger between Raytheon Company, the historic defense giant, and the United Technologies Corporation aeronautical branch (UTC), owner of Pratt & Whitney and, in fact, Collins Aerospace.This union gave birth to a giant with skills ranging from plane engines to advanced defense systems, from radar to avionic components.In recent years RTX has benefited from the growth of US military and international military spending, so much so that he has passed Boeing on the stock exchange (211 billion dollars against 163 to 19 September), becoming the main American aerospace player by capitalization.Then there is Lockheed Martin, who remains the largest contractor in the United States and the world in the defense sector, with a capitalization close to that of RTX and a dominant role thanks to programs such as the F-35. Who is behind the attacks? Experts identify three categories of possible managers.Classic cybercriminals, those of ransomware, may have focused on airports to maximize chaos and increase the chances of collecting millionaire ransoms.Then there is the industrial espionage track: stealing the secrets of systems such as the EWPBM would apply on the black market of military technology.But the most disturbing hypothesis concerns state actors.Some governments may have orchestrated the attack to test the resilience of western infrastructures or to send a clear political message: "We can hit you when we want". A growing trend According to Securityaffairs, attacks against the aviation sector and defense contractors increased by 600% between 2024 and 2025. The cause?An explosive combination of increasingly sophisticated hacking tools and accelerated digitization that has multiplied the attack surfaces. The Collins Aerospace case shows how a single weak point in the technological chain can send both civil airports and potentially compromising strategic military systems.