New Zealand: The post office and major banks faced problems due to a DDoS attack.
The websites of several New Zealand postal services and financial institutions were briefly down today, with experts saying they were facing a cyberattack. Security experts from the country's Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert) have spoken of a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack that appears to have targeted several New Zealand organizations.
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Cert reported on its site that it was monitoring the situation and collaborated with the organizations that were affected, to help as much as it could.
Local media reported that some of the sites affected by the DDoS attack included the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) and the NZ Post postal service .
In a Facebook post, ANZ told customers that some of them would not have access to online banking services.
"Our technical team is working hard to fix this issue, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause," the post said.
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On the other hand, NZ Post said that the issues on its site were due to a problem with one of its third-party suppliers.
New Zealand DDoS: Citizens complain about problems at banks and postal service
Several customers also reported problems on social media. Among other things, users reported an inability to connect to the Kiwibank, which is partly owned by NZ Post.
Kiwibank apologized to customers in its post on Twitter and said it is working to fix the problem in its app, Internet banking, phone banking and website.
In DDoS attacks, organizations' servers are overwhelmed by countless requests sent by attackers with the aim of overloading the system and disrupting the operation of the victims' services.
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In January, a cyberattack led to a major data breach at New Zealand's central bank, while in May, hospitals were targeted by a hacking group.
Source: The Straits Times
