The websites were reportedly restored only by the following afternoon, disrupting government services.
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A number of government websites were affected by a suspected cyber attack today.
However, they have left Government IT chiefs scratching their heads as to who might be responsible.
The office confirmed the entire Irish government network experienced what is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, in which hackers overwhelm a site by flooding it with phony traffic, according to the Times.
“We have implemented our contingency plans which are created to minimise this disruption”.
Similarly, Boards.ie – the popular Irish online forum – was hit with a similar DDoS attack on Monday night, with login and posting issues having continued throughout this week.
But there concern is that these DDoS attacks could be a smokescreen for other cyberattacks intent on more malicious purposes.
Speaking to theJournal.ie, the Office of Public Expenditure and Reform said it also suffered from “a number of DDoS [distributed denial of service] attacks” causing “periodic disruption” to a number of its services. It is typically used by organisations such as Anonymous, the global activist group that targets political, financial and terrorist organisations.
Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI), which operates the National Lottery, issued a statement saying the attack had been blunted by the company’s anti-DDoS systems, “limiting disruption and restoring all operations within two hours”.
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The attacks come days after the website of the National Lottery was brought to its knees with a similar attack and was unavailable for two hours.
