Swiss cities targeted by Russian hackers during WEF
Schaffhausen and Geneva also affected by Russian hacker attacks
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Listening: Swiss cities targeted by Russian hackers during WEF
Russian hackers have targeted canton Schaffhausen, in northern Switzerland and the cities of Geneva and Sierre, paralysing their websites on Wednesday morning.
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Auch Schaffhausen und Genf von russischen Hackerangriffen betroffen
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Just before midday, canton Schaffhausen announced that its website was back online after a so-called Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack. Informatik Schaffhausen, working with an external provider, managed to completely fend off the attack. The administration’s operations were never affected.
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Explainer: how vulnerable is Switzerland to cyber-attacks?
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Cyberattacks are a growing headache for governments and companies around the world. Switzerland is no exception.
In the morning, Schaffhausen energy supplier SH Power also displayed an error message. However, its site was back online before midday. Meanwhile, the websites for the cities of Sierre and Geneva remained inaccessible.
The cantonal banks of Zurich and Vaud were hit on Tuesday, while the websites of several Lucerne municipalities were paralysed the day before.
The National Cyber Security Centre anticipated these attacks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. DDoS attacks flood websites and apps with so many requests that they become inaccessible, though no data is lost.
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