Political events lead to flooding of federal websites
Published: Thursday, Nov 2nd 2023, 12:40
Updated At: Friday, Nov 3rd 2023, 00:54
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Ukraine President Volodymyr Selenskyj's online speech in parliament and a decision by the Council of States prompted "hacktivists" to attack federal administration websites in the first half of 2023. They flooded the websites and overloaded them.
The two attacks on the federal government motivated by so-called "hacktivism" occurred in June, the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) said Thursday in its mid-year review. The first attack followed a decision by the Council of States on the War Material Act.
The small chamber wanted to allow the transfer of war material purchased in Switzerland under certain circumstances. A DDoS attack then flooded the parliamentary services' website with the aim of overloading it and making it inaccessible to users.
The second attack was a reaction to the announcement of Selenskyj's online address in the National Council chamber. This affected federal offices, parliament, large companies, some airports, cities and cantons, and the Swiss Bankers Association.
Fraud most common
Overall, the number of cyber incidents reported to the center increased by around 2,000 to just over 19,000 in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year. The most frequent reports concerned forms of fraud.
Threatening e-mails in which victims were accused of a crime by a supposed authority - increasingly also in the name of the NCSC - accounted for 30 percent of this.
Second place was taken by phishing e-mails, which increased by 40 percent in the space of a year. They accounted for one fifth of the reports. The main reason for the increase was a campaign against Swisspass customers that lasted almost the entire first half of the year.
At 64, the number of ransomware incidents remained almost the same as in the first half of 2022 (76). In addition to short-term operational restrictions due to encrypted data, the publication of leaked corporate data caused consequential damage that is difficult to quantify.
©Keystone/SDA
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