DDoS Attacks Hit Denmark Central Bank and 7 Private Banks

The official websites of Denmark‘s central bank and seven other private banks in the country were hit by a series of massive DDoS attacks on Tuesday, January 10th, 2022. The attacks caused them to be inaccessible to users, according to the central bank.

Along with the websites of the central bank, Bankdata—a company that develops IT solutions for the financial industry—was also targeted by a DDoS attack.

What is a DDoS attack?

A DDoS attack, or Distributed Denial of Service attack, is a malicious cyberattack used to disrupt the availability of a service to its intended users. It’s an attack that attempts to make an online service unavailable by flooding it with an overwhelming amount of traffic from multiple sources.

DDoS attacks are often large-scale and can target web servers, networks, applications, and Internet-connected (IoT) devices. During DDoS attacks, attackers send a huge volume of requests to the targeted resource in order to saturate its network bandwidth or resources.

This forces the server to slow down drastically or even crash completely, making it unavailable for legitimate users. The goal is usually either financial gain through ransom demands or simply disruption and destruction.

Current Status

As for the latest attack on Danish banks; a spokesperson for the central bank told Reuters that its website was working normally on Tuesday afternoon, and the attack did not impact the bank’s other systems or day-to-day operations.

Due to the DDoS attack on Bankdata, seven private banks’ websites were affected and could not be accessed, a company spokesperson said. The banks included two of Denmark’s largest, Jyske Bank and Sydbank, they said.

Sydbank confirmed on its Facebook page that access to its website had been restricted on Tuesday. A Jyske spokesperson confirmed some customers had experienced problems accessing its website on Tuesday.

At the time of writing, all targeted websites, including the National Bank’s website, were restored and available online.

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I’m a student and cybersecurity writer. On a random Sunday, I am likely to be figuring out life and reading Kafka.