Russia’s Second-Largest Airport’s Website Gets Hacked; Pulkovo Airport Confirms Cyber Breach

A routine Friday morning for travellers at Pulkovo Airport, Russia’s main gateway to St. Petersburg, came with an unexpected hitch: the airport’s official website was hacked after what officials later confirmed was a cyberattack. While flights kept taking off and landing on schedule, passengers looking for flight times or booking information were left staring at error messages instead.

Pulkovo Airport Says Their Website Was Hacked 

According to The Guardian, the airport has not said who might be responsible, nor how deep the intrusion went. For now, officials insist that the hack was confined to the public-facing site and did not touch critical systems such as air-traffic control or internal safety networks. Investigators are still combing through the breach, trying to determine whether sensitive data such as passenger details, staff credentials, or anything else of value was exposed.

What makes the attack stand out is the backdrop against which it unfolded. Russia’s aviation sector has been a frequent target for hackers since the war in Ukraine split into cyberspace.

Just two months ago, Aeroflot suffered one of the most damaging cyber incidents in its history. Pro-Ukraine hacktivist groups claimed responsibility for wiping servers and paralyzing internal systems, forcing flight cancellations at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

Go back further, to 2024, and Ukrainian cyber units were openly targeting airports like Domodedovo, knocking websites offline and sowing confusion at regional hubs, as stated by The Guardian. 

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Russia’s Aviation Sector Faces Rising Cybersecurity Threat

So while Friday’s strike at Pulkovo may not have grounded planes, it does fit a troubling pattern. In today’s digital ecosystem, It’s a nerve centre for passengers juggling schedules, tickets, and connections. A takedown, even temporary, chips away at public trust and exposes how fragile these digital gateways can be.

Cybersecurity analysts watching these incidents warn that groups like Silent Crow or the Cyber Partisans often aim less at financial theft and more at messaging: they want visibility, headlines, and proof that Russia’s defences can be punctured. Denial-of-service floods, site defacements, and brute-force hacks have become part of their agenda.

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For Pulkovo, the episode could serve as a stress test. Regulators in Moscow are expected to demand answers, and the airport’s IT teams will likely face audits of their perimeter defenses and incident-response readiness. Whether this ends up as a blip on the radar or the start of a longer story depends on what investigators uncover in the coming weeks. For now, flights at Russia’s second-largest airport are still leaving the tarmac. The question is whether confidence in the systems supporting them will hold.

Cover Image Courtesy: natsya2014/Wikipedia