Several Swiss municipalities and banks hit by cyberattack

The Russian hacker group NoName is believed to be responsible for the so-called Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks on Tuesday. Keystone-SDA

Russian hackers are believed to be behind a cyberattack on the websites of several Swiss municipalities and banks on Tuesday. The National Cyber Security Centre had expected such attacks to occur during the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is taking place in Davos this week.

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For the hackers, it’s a quasi-demonstration online; they want to attract attention, the cyber security office told news agency Keystone-SDA on Tuesday, confirming a report of a cyber attack by the Bluewin.ch news portal.

The Russian hacker group NoName is believed to be responsible for these so-called Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. According to Bluewin.ch, the attacks affected the cantonal banks of Zurich and Vaud, as well as the Lucerne municipalities of Adligenswil, Kriens and Ebikon.

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According to the cyber security office, DDoS attacks consist in overloading websites and applications with targeted requests, so that they are no longer accessible. There is no data leakage during such attacks.

The same group of hackers paralysed several federal government websites in June 2023.

Translated from French with DeepL/gw

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