Below is an excerpt from the article “BNZ mobile banking service goes down due to ‘internal systems issue’” as published in Stuff (stuff.co.nz). By John Anthony
BNZ’s mobile banking services crashed on Wednesday morning due to “an internal systems issue”, a bank spokesman says.
The bank’s mobile app was unavailable from 10am until about 12.30pm, with many customers complaining to the bank via social media about not being able to access their bank accounts.
The bank spokesman would not say whether the issue was related to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, a wave of which have been affecting New Zealand websites.
Cyber criminals have been threatening organisations in banking, finance and retail sectors with DDoS attacks unless a ransom is paid in Bitcoin, prompting the Government Communications Security Bureau and Five Eyes partners to investigate and the Government’s National Security System to be activated.
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The chief executive of New Zealand online security testing firm Cyber Citadel, Jonathan Sharrock, said that while some disruptions might not be DDoS attacks in and of themselves, they might be linked due to a “smokescreen” created by such assaults.
If a company was on the same network as an organisation that was being targeted in a DDoS attack, then they might experience network issues.
“There is disruption going on,” Sharrock said.
“It may be because that part of the infrastructure is getting absolutely hammered.”
Furthermore, as one part of the network was being attacked, that took resources away from dealing with other problems, he said.
“You are trying to put out that fire and there is another one starting.”
Full article published in Stuff (stuff.co.nz) – 2 September 2020 ‘You don’t want to be like them, do you?’: The ominous message that precedes a DDoS attack
