Cyberattack on the Federal Administration: several websites are offline
The websites of the Swiss Federal Administration were attacked on Monday morning. Several pages have been offline since then.
The Federal Department of Finance announced in a press release this morning that a group called "NoName" has carried out a DDoS attack on the websites of the Swiss Federal Administration. For example, if you visit the website via the organisation of the Federal Administration, you will notice that this attack was apparently partially successful - the website is still offline as of 11:30 on Monday morning.
The Federal Administration's IT managers quickly realised the attack, according to the press release. They are now working at full speed to restore all websites and other affected systems.
Nothing is currently known about the reasons for this attack. All that is known is that stolen data from the Federal Administration (as well as from SBB, Fedpol and the Canton of Aargau) appeared on the darknet last week - the authenticity of the stolen data has since been confirmed by the Federal Administration. These are linked to the attack on the company XPlain in Interlaken BE, which offers software for public authorities and counts the Federal Administration among its customers.
The SBB website was also affected by a DDoS attack this morning. Both the timetable and the ticket shop were no longer accessible.
What is a DDoS attack?
The current attack is a DDoS attack (Distributed Denial of Service). This involves disrupting the data traffic of a server, a service or a network. To achieve this, the attackers flood the target system with a flood of requests, rendering it inoperable.
Cover photo: Florian Bodoky
I've been tinkering with digital networks ever since I found out how to activate both telephone channels on the ISDN card for greater bandwidth. As for the analogue variety, I've been doing that since I learned to talk. Though Winterthur is my adoptive home city, my heart still bleeds red and blue.