In the first half of this year, more than a thousand cyber-attacks have been identified, the main targets of which were information systems of public institutions, including critical ones. In a reply to IPN, the Information Technology and Cyber Security Service states that attacks linked to NoName058 and CyberArmy which are affiliated to the Russian Federation have been identified.
Russian Federation-affiliated cybercriminal groups NoName058 and CyberArmy were responsible for at least two massive waves of DDoS attacks, which took place the day before and on the day of last fall’s elections. According to the STISC, these waves represented a level of intensity that can be considered an all-time record in terms of the strength of cyberattacks in the Republic of Moldova.
During a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, the attacker uses networks of compromised devices – known as a botnet – to send a massive volume of requests to a computer system or network. These devices are infected with malware (malicious software), often without their users being aware of it. The aim of the attack is to overload the target servers, rendering services unavailable or severely affecting their operation. In some cases, attacks can completely disrupt an entire network.
Such an attack can disable the targeted system for a significant period of time or cause major malfunctions in certain components. In addition, such attacks are costly and involve complex and lengthy recovery processes.
STISC data also shows that 131,335 attempted attacks on the Central Electoral Commission’s information systems were recorded in the last year, such as XSS (injecting malicious scripts into websites designed to compromise user sessions and data), SQL and Code injections (inserting malicious code that gives attackers access to sensitive information or corrupts victim databases).
As far as measures are concerned, the institution says it has set up information security measures to detect and block such attacks. More than 10 000 IP addresses involved in the attacks have been blocked.
