© Ina Fassbender / Reuters
At least five Russian major banks came under a continuous hacker attack, although online client services were not disrupted.
The attack came from a wide-scale botnet involving at least 24,000 computers, located in 30 countries.The attack began Tuesday afternoon, and continued for two days straight, according to a source close to Russia's Central Bank quoted by RIA Novosti. Sberbank confirmed the DDoS attack on its online services.
"The attacks are conducted from botnets, consisting of tens of thousands computers, which are located in tens of countries," Sberbank's press service told RIA.
The initial attack was rather massive and its power intensified over the course of the day.
"We registered a first attack early in the morning ... the next attack in the evening involved several waves, each of them was twice as powerful as the previous one.
Bank's cybersecurity noticed and located the attack in time. There have been no problems in client online services," Sberbank representative said.
Alfabank has also confirmed the fact of the attack, but called it a "weak" one.
"There was an attack, but it was relatively weak. It did not affect Alfabank's business systems in any way," the bank told RIA Novosti.
According to Russian computer security company Kaspersky Lab, more than a half of the botnet devices were situated in the US, India, Taiwan and Israel, while the attack came from 30 countries. Each wave of attack lasted for at least one hour, while the longest one went on for 12 hours straight. The power of the attacks peaked at 660 thousands of requests per second. Some of the banks were attacked repeatedly.
"Such attacks are complex, and almost cannot be repelled by standard means used by internet providers," the news agency quoted Kaspersky Lab's statement as saying.
According to a source in Central Bank, the botnet behind the attack consists not only of computers, but also of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Computer security experts note, that various devices ranging from CCTV cameras to microwaves, are prone to hacking and pose a significant threat when assembled into a botnet. Owners of such devices underestimate the risks and often do not even bother to change a default password. A massive botnet, able to send more than 1.5Tbps and consisting of almost 150 thousands of CCTV cameras has been reportedly uncovered in September.
According to Kaspersky Lab, it was the first massive attack on Russian banks this year. The previous attack of such a scale came in October 2015, when eight major banks were affected.
Reader Comments
The Deep State knows full well that the Wikileaks emails were supplied to Wikileaks NOT by Julian Assange, who is incommunicado in the Ecuadorian Embassy without Internet access, but by Russian Government hackers.
Vladimir Putin himself warned months ago in a recorded speech that the West's constant attacks on Russia would be met with retaliation, but explained it would be, as he put it, "asymmetrical."
The Russian cyber attacks did not derail trains, shut down power stations, or send air traffic control haywire, all of which they could easily have done, in response to the US messing with them.
No, instead they have attacked the US political system itself, and demonstrated to the US public and the entire watching world the depth of corruption and sleaze in Washington. These seeds they have planted will continue to sprout and fester, as Americans become more and more disgusted with the political cesspool in DC, and the country becomes increasingly ungovernable by the secret cabal and its media organs of propaganda.
When the Deep State in America wants to overthrow a non-compliant regime, they do it with bullets, bombs and a barrage of lies, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions. It was done in Serbia, in Iraq, in Libya, and now in Syria. Those are just the more prominent among over 50 violent attacks on democratic regimes by the US Deep State since WWII. [Link]
But Russia has just demonstrated how to bloodlessly achieve regime change in America, with bullets of truth, and bombs of revelatory insight, aimed at the long-suffering American public. Russia Today and a host of sites like SOTT are their ground troops and fifth columns inside the belly of The Beast.
The Russians have always been underestimated by oligarchic America, which thinks the whole world is Grenada, or Panama, or Somalia, or Iraq, or Libya, or Syria. Those countries may have been pushovers for the USA, but Russia is a tougher nut to crack, and in trying to bite The Bear on its ass, Washington will end up breaking its teeth.
Many gullible sheep in America are bitterly unhappy that Killary lost. Little do they know what they have been saved from - a future of more of the same oligarchic lies and oppression, and perhaps even a Hot War with Russia.
A hundred years ago the Carnegie Endowment, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the oligarchic families in America began a project to turn the American People from a nation of educated, smart, well-informed, self-reliant and independent thinkers into a herd of stupid, ignorant, compliant sheep, good for nothing but slaving their lives away for the greater enrichment of the oligarchs.
But having controlled the media and all sources of information for 80 years, along came the Internet. In response the Deep State has tried to turn us into a nation of angry people fighting among ourselves - divide and rule the peasants. Keep them fighting each other so they won't ask who their real enemy is.
Now, these angry peasants have turned on their masters. A Spartacus, a Toussaint L'Ouverture, a Gandhi has arisen in the form of Donald Trump, and has rallied the oppressed masses. It was inevitable. For 25 years it has been said that if the oligarchs did not curb their greed, sooner or later a Mussolini or a Lenin would arise in America. Now, here he is.
But Trump is only just beginning his travails as President. The oligarchs will not go down without retaliating, with all the weapons at their disposal. Watch out for an economic collapse in 2017 which will dwarf 2008. The uppity peasants who elected Trump must be given a lesson in who really owns this country, and must be made to regret their foolishness in electing the non-Establishment candidate. The first shot across Trump's bow will be an interest rate hike by the Fed - the ultimate insider cabal of the Deep State, a private corporation owned by the super-oligarchs.
Advice to all: Start preparing now for the worst times you have ever known. Stockpile non-perishable food and if you have extra money, keep a few month's expenses in cash at home, or better yet buy some silver. Not gold - it will be too expensive for daily transactions, but silver will buy you food and necessities.
And above all, stay optimistic. The Deep State runs on fear. Do not be afraid. We will survive. And on the other side of the coming crisis, we will all be wiser and tougher than we are today. The long-term future is bright - after the storm, a new day will dawn in America. Believe it, work for it, and it will happen.
- Lemuel Gulliver.
-Rf