Tag: distributed denial of service
Financial services see DDoS attacks double
Financial services companies worldwide saw the number of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks more than double in the second half of 2024. A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt a service by overwhelming it with a flood of internet traffic. In the same period, the total number of DDoS attacks globally grew by 17 percent. According to global hosting and cloud services company Gcore, the financial services sector saw the most significant rise of any sector in the third and fourth quarters of 2024, with a rise of 117 percent. This marks a consistent overall increase in DDoS attacks quarter on quarter. While the third and fourth quarters of 2024 showed an increase of 17 percent, this represents a 56 percent rise over the same period in 2023.
Ukraine takes down Russia’s financial services
Hackers from Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate claim to have effected one of the largest Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks in history, derailing Russia’s financial services. According to the Kyiv Post, the attack compromised the online services of all major Russian banks, including the Central Bank, telecommunications service providers, national payment systems, social networks and messengers, government resources, and dozens of other services. The affected Russian financial institutions are reported to include VTB Bank, Alfa Bank, SberBank, Raiffeisen Bank, RSHB Bank, Ak Bars Bank, Rosbank, Gazprombank, Tinkoff Bank, iBank, Dom.RF Bank, and the Bank of Russia. On the last day of the attack, the resources of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Federal Tax Service was also reported to have been affected.
Latest Microsoft outage ‘triggered’ by a cyber-attack
A second outage of several Microsoft services in two weeks, this one attributed to a cyber-attack, is fuelling further questions about the underlying security of the Windows operating system. According to Microsoft: "While the initial trigger event was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack... initial investigations suggest that an error in the implementation of our defenses amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it.” Services affected included Outlook, Azure, and Microsoft 365, with some people complaining on social media that they were unable to work. Starbucks customers also reported issues with the Starbucks app in Boston, New York, Washington DC, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tampa and other cities. The disruption caused by this latest outage is, however, minor compared with the Windows outage caused by a mishandled CrowdStrike security upgrade, which resulted in canceled flights and marooned passengers in major international airports around the world last week.
DDoS Attack on Pennsylvania Fails to Halt City Government – February 6th
Officials from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts announced their website was hit by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which the city says did not compromise data or halt government operations. The attack is now being investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to uncover the hackers behind the attack and to ensure it is not a symptom of a larger-scale ransomware attack.
‘Hacktivists’ target environmental services
Politically-motivated hacking, known as ‘hacktivism’, is now on the rise across large sections of the globe. Politically motivated groups are increasingly attacking their enemies with primitive but effective distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which involve overwhelming the target’s servers with vast volumes of internet traffic. But, according to cybersecurity firm Cloudflare’s DDoS Threat Report, the organizations being targeted most are environmental agencies pursuing green agendas such as Net Zero. While Cloudflare reported an overall increase of 117 percent in DDoS attacks around Black Friday and the holiday season, DDoS attacks on environmental agencies have soared over sixty-thousand-fold over the same period.
Newsquest Media Group Discloses Cyberattack – December 15th
The UK's Newsquest Media Group reported a cyberattack that disrupted the company's websites and apps to the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on Monday, December 11th. The UK media company with over 250 local news sites' stated that the series of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks disrupted the reading experience of an estimated 48 million monthly readers.