Cybersecurity experts warned that cybercriminals are increasingly targeting high-profile systems to secure bigger payoffs and enhance their online notoriety, after a weekend attack crippled airport check-in networks across Europe and left thousands of passengers stranded.

The European Union’s cybersecurity agency ENISA confirmed on Monday that the hack on Collins Aerospace, owned by RTX, was a ransomware attack, but did not say where the attack originated from. The outage, which hit check-in and baggage drop services, has affected dozens of flights since Friday.

“Broadly, the majority of ransomware activity is still geared towards extortion through data encryption and theft,” said Rafe Pilling, Director of Threat Intelligence at Sophos, a British cybersecurity firm.

“The subset of at

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