- David Polách
At the end of August, the news was filled with headlines about the fact that virtually all large banking houses in the Czech Republic had become the target of cyber attacks. That sounds ominous in itself, but what really happened? Was there any damage? And most importantly – what about (our) saved money? Are they safe?
First, let's clarify what it was actually about. There are a number of cyber attacks and their use differs mainly according to the goalthat the attackers want to achieve. Typical are various types of phishing attacksthe aim of which is to obtain the victim's access data, ransomwarewhose aim is to encrypt the data of the target system and demand a ransom or DDoS attacks
During a DDoS attack, the target (a server connected to a public Internet network) is overwhelmed with so many requests that it can no longer handle them. The service will thus cease to be available for the user. It is typical for DDoS attacks that requests to the target server are sent from a large number of different devices. As for the type of device, their operating system, the intended use of the device or its physical location. This complicates the work of the defenders, because they cannot simply ban requests from one device or from a specific territory, but have to deal with each device separately.
The motivation for carrying out these types of attacks is usually only to make life miserable for the victims - apart from momentary media popularity, the attackers do not gain much. Groups that are supported by the states in which they operate are usually behind this type of attacks. This particular attack is attributed to the Russian group NoName057, who claimed to be a hack on his Telegram account.
When we return to the initial questions - the damage has certainly been done. Banks could not provide standard services through their websites. Whether it is enabling clients to find out when the nearest branch is open, through general information about the services provided to internet banking.
However, savers' funds or any other data were not threatenedClients of banking houses can thus breathe a sigh of relief. No permanent damage was done to them from these attacks. This is finally confirmed by the words of the director of The National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NCISA) or the spokesperson of the Czech Banking Association.
