Czech mobile network operators facing cyber attack

Telefonica set its webpage into operation at around 10:00 a.m., while T-Mobile's webpages are accessible, but with the reservation that they are overburdened.

"After roughly one hour, we set our webpage into operation. We have filtered off the addresses from which the attacks were coming," Farghali said, adding that these were attacks from IP addresses in Russia, similarly to the previous days.

The hackers' attacks have caused problems to some webpages in the Czech Republic in the past days.

The companies cannot provide some more services associated with their Internet pages.

However, the websites of Vodafone, another major mobile phone operator in the Czech Republic, regularly work.

T-Mobile spokeswoman Martina Kemrova said the operator's webpage had faced a massive overload and it was now out of operation.

"Our technical staff are analysing the situation. The services linked to the web are not working either," Kemrova said.

She said the servies would be renewed by noon.

Since Monday, unknown hackers have attacked some domestic news servers and the webpages of banks and other institutions, using the Distribued Denial of Service (DDoS).

Vladimir Broz, head of the Czech branch of the anti-virus firm Fortinet, said a tremendous number of demands had been sent to the attacked server. If the server does directly collapse, legitimate users then do not have access to it.

As a DDoS is conducted from a large number of places it is not easy to cut off the assailant, Broz said.

Multinational companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, PayPal, Visa and MasterCard have faced similar attacks. The first DDoS attacks appeared in the 1990s.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz