Government sites hit in new wave of cyber attacks

One potential with DDoS attacks in the past has been the use of the initial attack as a smokescreen for more serious and targetted assault on a website.

A range of Government websites were shut down for up to 12 hours in the latest in a series of cyber attacks.

Several government websites have been forced offline for several hours, underlining the need for greater attention to be paid to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The websites were reportedly restored only by the following afternoon, disrupting government services.

The website of mobile phone company Meteor was also affected, reports the national broadcaster RTÉ.

The National Lottery fell foul of a cyber attack earlier in the week.

Last July New Jersey State and Federal authorities investigated a cyber-attack on four Atlantic City online casino gambling sites, which were apparently targeted by a hacker who promised more disruption unless a ransom was paid in Bitcoin.

PLI didn’t specify whether it had received a ransom demand, the kind that online sportsbooks and other gambling sites receive when under DDoS attack.

The spokesman said that attacks continued throughout yesterday, but he could not say whether they would continue through the weekend.

“Motivations can include political, or “hacktivism”, or fraud”, he said.

DDoS attacks generally do not involve theft of data.

Once the vestige of pranksters, DDoS attacks that flood a website’s servers with fake traffic from multiple points to shut down the website are now considered criminal behaviour, with those found to be perpetrating such crimes usually facing harsh punishments.