Site icon The Cybersecurity Daily News

Massive DDoS Attack on Belgium Government & their official site

ddos attack

CyberDaily: Cybersecurity news

In the latest malware developments, the Belgian Government has fallen victim to a massive DDoS attack i.e Distributed-denial-of-service attack that knocked down more than 200 websites of the country including official government websites.

A DDoS attack is designed purely with the intent of disrupting websites and services by taking them offline by overwhelming them with an excessive amount of traffic.

Massive DDoS attack:

Reportedly, the attack was initiated on the 4th of May at 11 am and overcrowded the websites with internet traffic.

This rendered the organizational websites useless for visitors, all the while overwhelming the internal systems 

The attack targeted Belnet which is the government-funded ISP provider for Belgium’s educational institutions, research centers, scientific institutes, and government services – including government ministries and the Belgian parliament. Some debates and committee meetings had to be postponed as users couldn’t access the virtual services required to take part.

Belgium Cyber-Authorities alerted:

Subsequently, the Belgium cybersecurity cell Center for Cybersecurity Belgium i.e. (CCB) was made aware of the DDoS attack being initiated on such a massive scale. 

It is noted that the DDoS attack was a consequence of the malicious perpetrators continuously altering the techniques supporting it.

According to Belnet, it’s unclear who was behind the attack, but the network provider is investigating it. Belnet has also filed a complaint with the Federal Computer Crime Unit.

In many cases, DDoS attacks will exploit servers, computers, and Internet of Things devices that have been taken control of by cybercriminals and roped into a botnet – an army of devices controlled by cyber attackers – using that traffic to overwhelm the capabilities of the target to the extent it becomes inaccessible for anyone.

The intent of the attackers is purely disruption and Belnet has stated that there’s been no data breach or theft of data as a result of the attack, nor did cybercriminals infiltrate the network – they just overwhelmed it with web traffic.

Exit mobile version