Yesterday, two Czech banks, Raiffeisenbank and Moneta Money Bank, experienced a service outage for their web and mobile banking. This follows similar problems from five other local banks the day before. The National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NCISA) reported that they have detected ongoing attacks on a part of the Czech banking sector, including DDoS attacks.
DDoS attacks, or distributed denial-of-service attacks, overwhelm a server by flooding it with many requests, temporarily making the services of targeted organizations unavailable. The NCISA and the attacked institutions are working to resolve the situation.
According to antivirus companies Eset and Avast, the Russian hacktivist group NoName057 is responsible for the Thursday attacks and those from Wednesday. The group has targeted Moneta and Raiffeisenbank and mBank, the Portal of Trade Licensing, and the Identity of Citizens. NoName057 has confirmed their activity on Telegram.
In response to the outage, Raiffeisenbank apologized and assured customers they were working to restore their services as soon as possible. Moneta Money Bank also apologized, stating that their Smart Bank, web, and mobile banking services were down. They assured customers that their money and sensitive data are not at risk and that they are working hard to restore all of their systems.
The incident brings attention to the importance of cybersecurity for financial institutions. With the rise of cyber attacks, the banking industry must take extra precautions to protect their systems and customers. In addition to strengthening security measures, regular testing and updating of security protocols are necessary to ensure the safety of customer data and prevent service disruptions.
The NCISA has urged the public to report suspicious activity and stay vigilant against cyber threats. With their guidance and cooperation, we can work towards a safer and more secure digital environment.