Belgium suffered an unprecedented DDoS attack

Belgium, a country in the European Union (EU), has suffered an unprecedented distributed denial of service (DDoS) campaign in the country's history of internet development.

According to preliminary investigation results, the attack destroyed hundreds of websites, large and small of more than 200 organizations across Belgium, including organizations directly under the government, the parliament, and a series of universities. and the large research institute… It is not too much to say that the attack left the public internet of this country in a state of chaos in no short time.

The DDoS campaign above started at 11 a.m. on May 4, and almost immediately flooded the traffic to a wide range of websites, leaving these websites inaccessible, then slowly going. gradually overwhelms internal systems, and eventually separates them from the internet. Several important online meetings of the Belgian government have been postponed because delegates cannot access necessary virtual services.

Belgium suffered an unprecedented DDoS attack Picture 1

The attack mainly targeted Belnet, the main ISP provider for educational institutions, research centers, scientific institutes and service organizations, according to cybersecurity investigators. government - includes all Belgian government ministries and parliament. Notably, Belnet is a unit funded by the Belgian government, so the possibility that this is a politically colored and well-targeted cyberattack is not excluded.

Belgium's central cybersecurity agency - Center for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB) m - is the main organization responsible for preventing and resolving the aftermath of an attack. One of the reasons the attack was repeatedly interrupted and difficult to respond to was the fact that the men behind the operations repeatedly changed attack techniques and distracted Belgian cybersecurity agencies.

'The perpetrator constantly changed tactics made it much more difficult to neutralize the attack,' said Dirk Haex, Belnet's technical director.

Less than 24 hours after the DDoS attack took place, Belnet said its services were back available, but at the same time raised alert about the risk of further attacks.

It seems that the main purpose of the attackers was merely to interrupt Belnet's service because, according to preliminary investigation, there was no such breach or theft. to the present time. In addition, cybercriminals did not break into Belnet's network - they just knocked it down with massive web traffic.

Jessica Tanner

Update 06 May 2021