When London Heathrow went dark, a fundamental shift occurred in how we think about the security of critical national infrastructure and supply chain attacks.
The coordinated attack that hit London, Brussels and Berlin airports was not just another cyber incident. It was a preview of what happens when attackers industrialise their methods and target the digital ecosystems that keep our world moving.
The sophistication and coordination required to disrupt multiple international airports simultaneously show we have entered a new phase of cyber warfare.
The Threat Has Industrialised
The attackers did not simply get lucky; they targeted Collins Aerospace’s MUSE software, a common-use passenger processing system relied on by multiple airports for check-in and baggage handling.
One vendor. Multiple airports. Cascading failure. Yet another supply chain attack.
This kind of dependency is exactly what we caution clients about: supply chain risk. One weak point in a shared system can send shockwaves through an entire industry. At Heathrow, Brussels and Berlin, staff managed to keep planes moving with manual workarounds, but the disruption was still serious and prolonged.
With a platform this critical, continuous monitoring and rapid containment are essential. A properly deployed Managed eXtended Detection and Response (MXDR) service could have allowed Collins to detect anomalies earlier, contain the issue and recover faster, reducing operational shock and restoring confidence sooner.
Cyberattacks on the aviation sector jumped 600% between 2024 and 2025 and the likelihood of an air transport firm suffering an incident now stands at more than 30% each year. That is not a possibility. It is a statistical certainty.
The Vulnerability Gap
While headlines focus on major airports, the greatest exposure often lies with businesses in the wider transport ecosystem: freight operators, ground handlers and logistics providers.
These organisations connect directly to airport and airline systems, but rarely have enterprise-scale cyber security budgets or in-house SOCs. Most run a mix of legacy infrastructure alongside modern cloud services, often without unified visibility.
Time and again, we see the same weaknesses: outdated password policies, shared contractor accounts, patching delays and limited use of multi-factor authentication. Attackers exploit these gaps, knowing that disrupting a logistics provider may not make front-page news, but it can delay cargo, ground flights and undermine trust in the wider system.
The financial stakes are enormous. The 95% Tail Value at Risk for an air transport company now exceeds $79 million in extreme cyber events.
Assume Breach, Not Safety
Most strategies still fixate on prevention: building higher walls, deploying more tools and strengthening perimeters. But that approach fails when attackers gain legitimate access.
We saw this firsthand with a financial services client. Despite significant perimeter investment, a contractor’s compromised account rendered their defences irrelevant. The attacker moved laterally with valid credentials, undetected until damage was done.
The shift is clear: from “we are safe until proven otherwise” to “we are already compromised, we just have not spotted it yet.”
For logistics firms, this means adopting Zero Trust security, where every login, device and application request is continuously verified. Monitoring must shift to 24x7 detection and response, using tools such as Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR. Regular incident response planning and cyber incident exercising embed resilience into daily operations.
The Next Frontier: Data Integrity Attacks
Here is what keeps me awake at night: the transport industry’s blind spot around data integrity.
Most organisations have prepared for outages and data theft, but few have prepared for attackers quietly altering information without triggering alarms.
Imagine cargo manifests subtly changed so hazardous goods are reclassified as standard and declared weights adjusted. Crew rosters were manipulated. The systems stay online, data appears intact, but the consequences are catastrophic: safety risks, regulatory breaches and cascading operational chaos.
AI makes these attacks scalable. Hackers no longer need to exfiltrate data; they only need to poison the right datasets and let the organisation’s own processes amplify the damage. Unlike ransomware, there is no obvious signal. The workflows themselves become the weapon.
Building Ecosystems of Trust
The longer an IT problem lasts, the more it impacts operational resilience.
Collins’ outage also underlines that suppliers of critical systems carry regulatory duties. Frameworks such as EU NIS2, UK NIS Regulations and EASA’s information-security baseline (Part-IS) impose obligations for supply-chain resilience, rapid reporting and provable technical controls. “Security by intention” is no longer enough; regulators expect evidence, not assurances.
No single company can defend the aviation ecosystem alone. Threat intelligence sharing between airports, airlines, logistics providers and trusted partners is essential. Attackers collaborate and defenders must too.
For organisations, embedding “assume breach” into daily decision-making is the only viable path. The question is no longer “How do we stop attackers getting in?” but “When they do, how quickly can we spot it, contain it and keep running?”
Those who act now, by investing in 24x7 monitoring, Zero Trust identity controls and data integrity protections, will not only survive the next wave of attacks but also become the partners the industry trusts most when digital systems define business survival.
Resilience is never built in silos. It is built through ecosystems of trust, where technology, people and partnerships converge to turn inevitable breaches into manageable events.
Take Action
The London Heathrow outage is a reminder that resilience is no longer optional; it is the foundation of operational trust.
That is why we developed AssureMAP, CyberOne’s structured cyber maturity assessment. AssureMAP benchmarks your organisation against frameworks like NIST CSF, NCSC’s maturity scale, MITRE ATT&CK and Microsoft Secure Score, then delivers a prioritised roadmap to resilience.
This is not just about aviation. Every organisation, from logistics to finance, healthcare to professional services, depends on digital ecosystems where a single supplier misstep or targeted attack can trigger systemic disruption.
Book an AssureMAP assessment and take the first step towards measurable cyber resilience.