Central Bank of Malta confirms it suffered DDoS attack

The Central Bank of Malta (CBM) confirmed this newsroom’s reporting that it was the target of a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack which temporarily disrupted access to its website. Fortunately, it assured that no other systems or operations of the CBM were impacted.

This newsroom reported on Monday (yesterday) that the CBM’s website was inaccessible after a group of hackers known as the Turk Hack Team (THT) claimed responsibility for taking it down.

The Swiss National Bank was also a target of the attacks.

The DDoS attack started on 18th June, shortly after THT threatened the Swiss Government with attacking the country’s critical infrastructure, such as its banks, telecoms, and Government systems.

Why the CBM was also a target of the attack meant for the Swiss Government is not yet clear.

Following the attack, throughout most of the next day, a ‘Host error’ message came up for users attempting to access the CBM’s website. At around 4pm the issue was resolved, and the website was functioning normally again.

“The Central Bank of Malta’s website was the target of a cybersecurity Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which temporarily disrupted the accessibility to its website during this week,” read the CBM’s statement.

“Immediate necessary protective measures were taken to assess and contain the incident, and the access to the website was promptly restored. The attack did not impact the Bank’s other systems or day-to-day operations.”

It also assured that no data was lost in the attack.

The hacker group has since moved on to attacking other Swiss state entities, claiming to have recently taken down the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority.

The hacker group comes from one of the world’s oldest cybersecurity and hacker forums which was founded in 2002.

The group has since claimed responsibility for hundreds of cyber-attacks over the years, having targeted the German Secret Service, Austrian Central Bank, the Egyptian Government and countless other websites.