Rostelecom has successfully repelled distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against Russian banks and financial institutions, the telecommunications company reported Friday.
The series of attacks began on Monday, Dec. 5, and the longest single attack lasted more than two hours.
"A distinctive feature of the attacks was that they were organized with the help of devices that support the CWMP Management Protocol (TR-069)" – a network protocol for communication between devices, said Muslim Medzhlumov, Rostelecom's Director of Cyber-Security.
According to him, similar attacks were recorded last week against the German operator Deutsche Telecom and the Irish internet service provider Eircom.
Last Friday, the Federal Security Service (FSB) issued a warning to Russian banks and telecommunications companies about impending cyber-attacks coming from outside Russia. The security agency predicted DDOS attacks and bulk SMS messages of a provocative nature. VTB Bank reported that it had detected a weak DDOS attack on its website that week.
A DDOS attack is a hacking technique in which multiple computer systems, typically infected by a virus, are used to bombard another system, typically a web server, with traffic. This depletes the target system's bandwidth, disrupting its operation.
