Some flights in Kelowna and Victoria were delayed on Tuesday evening after public address systems and screens were overtaken.
The incident reportedly started sometime between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Oct. 14 at both the Kelowna International Airport (YLW) and Victoria International Airport (YYJ), where pro-Hamas messaging could be seen and heard throughout the airport.
"The YLW team has successfully removed the unauthorized messaging," said the airport in a press release just after 7 p.m. on Tuesday night. "It has also restored our flight information display screens and are continuing to work on restoring the PA system."
According to a post in the Kelowna Reddit, the messaging was on for about two minutes, and some of the messaging of the speakers included "Free Palenstine" and cursing out U.S. President Donald Trump.
City of Kelowna stated that the cyber security incident was limited to a cloud-based third party software provider. Airport systems are segregated to protect cyber security incidents from migrating from one network to another.
"A joint threat risk assessment was completed with RCMP and Transport Canada, and the messaging displayed was not deemed to be a direct threat towards the travelling public. To analyze the root cause, we are continuing to work with Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and Transport Canada," said a release from YLW and the City of Kelowna.
An image of the terminal screens was also shared on Reddit. They read "hacked by Mutarrif Siberislam" and stated a X account. The same messaging was also displayed on a pizza restaurant's screens in Mexico four months ago.
YYJ called the incident a "cloud-based software issue," while YLW said a third party gained access to its systems.
