By James Pearson

LONDON (Reuters) -Cybercriminals are taking greater risks by hitting high-profile targets to get bigger payoffs and boost their online reputational clout, cybersecurity experts said, after a weekend hack crippled airport check-in systems across Europe and stranded thousands of passengers.

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 cybers

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