Cyber Incident Victim: Salt Lake City International Airport
Date:
Mar 2016
Location:
United States of America
Summary
A hacker group known as New World Hackers launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against multiple Salt Lake City entities, including the international airport, police department, First Utah Bank, and Downtown Alliance. The attacks were staged in protest of a police shooting that critically injured 17-year-old Somali refugee Abdi Mohamed during an altercation. The group claimed responsibility for temporarily disrupting online services, specifically citing the police website as an ongoing target until accountability measures were taken. While most affected websites were restored shortly after the attacks, the bank's site remained offline at the time of initial reporting. This incident followed similar hacktivist actions against law enforcement agencies in other U.S. cities following controversial shootings.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On March 13, 2016, the New World Hackers (NWH) group executed distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against multiple Salt Lake City entities, including the Salt Lake City International Airport website, the Salt Lake City Police Department site, First Utah Bank, and the Downtown Alliance. The attacks were publicly claimed by NWH as a protest against the police shooting of 17-year-old Somali refugee Abdi Mohamed, who had been critically injured after being struck by three police bullets during a physical altercation in downtown Salt Lake City on February 27, 2016. Mohamed had reportedly picked up a broken broomstick during a fight with another individual prior to police arrival, though witness accounts and police perceptions of the threat remained unclear. NWH explicitly stated the attacks targeted law enforcement infrastructure "until justice is served" and the involved officer was arrested, linking their actions to broader patterns of hacktivist responses to police violence. The group, previously associated with high-profile attacks against Xbox Live, BBC News, HSBC UK, and Donald Trump’s campaign website, characterized the incident as part of an ongoing digital protest movement.
The DDoS attacks temporarily disrupted access to the targeted websites, with First Utah Bank’s site remaining offline at the time of media reporting on March 14, while the airport, police, and Downtown Alliance sites had been restored. No data breaches or permanent system compromises were reported. The incident occurred against the backdrop of Mohamed’s critical medical condition, as he remained in a coma following the shooting. This event mirrored prior hacktivist campaigns, including Anonymous-led operations protesting the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and attacks against the Cincinnati Police Department following a February 2016 officer-involved shooting. The Salt Lake City attacks demonstrated the continued use of disruptive cyber tactics by activist groups to amplify demands for police accountability, leveraging temporary service interruptions as a form of digital civil disobedience without causing lasting infrastructure damage.