Over the years, countries have engaged in battles across air, sea, land, and even space. However, with the growth in digital and cloud technologies, the internet has become another major battlefield used for launching attacks that cripple services and paralyze communications across entire countries. We're calling this the fifth battle dimension and it can bring entire nations to a halt. Nowadays, many attackers strategically choose online services belonging to government bodies, communication networks, and financial institutions to launch attacks on, choosing easy to launch attacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). This is an easy choice causing downtime and disrupting services easily.
Highlighted Fifth-Dimension DDoS Attacks
A classic example of the DDoS global threat can be witnessed in the May 2021 incident, when a large-scale DDoS attack brought several organizations in Belgium, including the government and parliament to a stop. By overwhelming them with bad traffic. In February 2021, the Secret Service of Ukraine came under a DDoS attack. The website faced several technical interruptions and struggled to mitigate the attack.
Additional Known DDoS Attacks on Governments in 2021 Include:
Date of attack |
Country |
Duration of Attack |
Companies affected |
Comments |
16-Jul |
Russia |
1 Hour |
Russian Defense Ministry |
|
9-Jul |
Ukraine |
NA |
Defense Ministry portal |
|
14-May |
Ireland |
1 Day |
Health Service Executive (HSE) |
|
10-Mar |
Philippines |
6 Hours |
Philippine government website Gov.ph |
The website showed an 'internal server error message. |
8-Mar |
Italy |
1 Day |
Italian Lower House of Parliament |
|
18-Feb |
Ukraine |
Several Days |
Security Service of Ukraine |
|
14-Feb |
Holland |
NA |
Dutch politician Kati Piri's website |
|
5-Feb |
Russia |
1 Day |
Russia’s National Guard (Rosgvardiya) |
|
17-Jan |
Russia |
2 Hours |
Russian Federal Penitentiary Service |
2020 DDoS Attacks
Date of attack |
Country |
Duration of Attack |
Companies affected |
Comments |
22-Nov |
Uganda |
24 Hours |
Uganda Police Website |
The Anonymous group said this was a response to political upheavals in Uganda. |
15-Nov |
Brazil |
NA |
TSE (Tribunal Superior Electoral) |
|
6-Oct |
USA |
7 Hours |
Florida Department of State website |
|
2-Sep |
New Zealand |
NA |
MetService |
|
11-Aug |
Iran |
NA |
People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran |
|
9-Aug |
Belarus (E.Europe) |
2 Days |
Central Election Commission, State Security Committee (KGB), and the Interior Ministry |
|
20-Jul |
North Macedonia |
Several Hours |
Interior, Health, and Education Ministries |
|
15-Jul |
North Macedonia |
> 3 Hours |
North Macedonia's State Electoral Commission |
Delayed announcement of voting results |
2-Jun |
Ukraine |
N/A |
Office of the President of Ukraine |
The attack targeted the websites of the Office of the President of Ukraine. |
31-May |
US |
Several Days |
Minnesota State's Networks |
State information systems are overloaded during a crisis situation. |
26-May |
Russia |
NA |
United Russia Party |
Attacked when launching the remote primary electoral contest to choose party candidates. |
6-May |
Ukraine |
Not Mentioned |
Ukrainian Government |
The majority of attacks are directed at the website of the President's Office. |
1-Apr |
Europe |
1 Day |
Italy's Social Security website |
How To Win The DDoS Battle
As DDoS attacks become increasingly complex and quick, there is limited time for current DDoS mitigation systems to react. It is imperative to detect and close all ongoing DDoS vulnerabilities, before an attack, to empower mitigation solutions to respond in the fastest possible way with minimal manual intervention.
Introducing RADAR™ - Detecting Open Vulnerabilities In Real-Time
Working with any mitigation solution installed, RADAR™ offers superior DDoS coverage and automated DDoS protection. RADAR™ simulates over 100 attack vectors with all public-facing IPs 24/7, giving real-time visibility to all DDoS vulnerabilities with no downtime.
How RADAR™ Works
RADAR™ clearly identifies the attack surface risks (DDoS vulnerabilities) automatically as they are generated across live production web-facing IPs. Then it prioritizes the vulnerabilities by the number of targets found prone to and details the nature of those vulnerabilities through unprecedented information. This information enables proper mitigation and remediation setup. Once the remediation is completed RADAR™ validates the remediated vulnerabilities ensuring the remediation process was successful.
Benefits of RADAR™ for Governments
- Operational Continuity – DDoS tests are designed to identify basic vulnerabilities in DDoS mitigation posture and are run without disruption to government websites. This ensures that government sites will continue to always function normally, irrespective of whether there are elections or political upheavals.
- Data-Driven Protection – Reports are generated representing the number of connections per second sent by MazeBolt's simulation cloud, with the corresponding number of connections per second that bypassed the setup. The reports empower IT personnel to remediate the vulnerability gaps in real-time and reduce the risk of DDoS attacks at all times.
- Security at All Times – RADAR™ highlights the most important DDoS vulnerabilities in the mitigation apparatus and/or architecture, allowing security personnel to make the least amount of changes. At the same time making the biggest impact in strengthening the IT infrastructure against DDoS attacks. Since it works continuously and non-disruptively, government sites are always available irrespective of the political changes or upheavals that could be taking place.
- Reduce the Workload of In-House IT Staff – As a result of the inherent weakness in existing mitigation solutions, the IT staff are pulled into action after an attack has occurred. This results in the staff being taken away from their regular activities to identify and mitigate DDoS attacks. Since RADAR™ prevents attacks, the workload of mitigating attacks is non-existent. IT teams are spared from sudden, stressful mitigation activities and can continue to focus on their day-to-day activities.
About MazeBolt
MazeBolt introduces a new standard in DDoS coverage, automatically detecting, analyzing, and prioritizing remediation across the network, doubling coverage, and virtually eliminating DDoS exposure without shutting down organizational operations. MazeBolt’s continuous defense supercharges the performance of CISOs as well as the mitigation service provider.