DDoS against Norwegian government IT infrastructure – status

(status.digdir.no)

70 points | by e12e 2 hours ago ago

46 comments

  • just_some_user an hour ago

    The actual interesting part about such an attack is not that something is down, but rather why someone would run it. A lot of DDoS originates from script kiddies, but such attacks are usually very short lived as attacks are expensive. So which actor would actually benefit from downing the Norwegian government?

    • Retr0id an hour ago

      DDoS tends to be monetised as DDoS-as-a-service. Taking down "significant" services is good advertising. Either that, or they plan to extort the Norwegian government.

      • just_some_user an hour ago

        But for such a "proof of power" a short attack which takes the service down once is enough, long attacks are not so common and actually require some work from the attacker

        • devin an hour ago

          Unless part of the social proof is that mitigation is more difficult.

        • Retr0id an hour ago

          If the attack doesn't last long, bystanders can't know whether it was trivially mitigated by the victim.

          A shorter attack won't make as many news headlines, either.

    • InTheArena an hour ago

      What do they benefit from taking down any government, NGO or civic work program? American systems, as well as larger European systems are constantly attacked. I've seen the same traffic. Fire walling off China, North Korea and smaller eastern European countries is a must if you ever plan to expose any internet exposed services.

    • roflmaostc an hour ago

      is there actually any source those attacks are really done by "script kiddies"?

      More likely this more politically motivated and backed up by money and more capable groups

    • giwook an hour ago

      Probably a country that lost to Norway in the World Cup.

    • esseph 18 minutes ago

      It hasn't been majorly like that in twenty years.

      Botnets are services now, a business. They gain customers by their effectiveness and resilience.

      For $$50-100 you can deny service to a lot of big sites and services.

    • cantalopes an hour ago

      Imo russia most likely

    • iwontberude an hour ago

      those script kiddies control botnets in foreign countries and use them to attack stuff just bc. its not their compute, so no marginal cost to them

    • tuatoru an hour ago

      The UK. It wants to steal Norway's vast stores of electricity.

    • cynicalsecurity an hour ago

      Really, you have no one in mind? Someone who is sending hundreds of bombing drones daily to Ukraine, killing civilian population, women and children, and who is eager to send a message to NATO countries any way possible?

      • motbus3 an hour ago

        That is much less effective than every other manner they tested on the past few years such as shadow fleets, ghost satellites etc.

        Up to the moment it has not been the operation adopted which would make it weird.

        On who would do it then, anyone who benefits from instability. From corporations trying to sell flocked uped sytems, politicians, etc.

        There is one south american country who was attacked exactly this way before their head of the government was kidnapped.

        • cynicalsecurity 34 minutes ago

          You don't understand Kremlin's mentality. Any even little nasty thing they can do to the West makes them giggle like Doctor Evil. "Oh, a NATO country's government infra was not protected from DDoS? Let's have fun, haha!" You are dealing with story book villains. I know, this sounds so ridiculous it's hard to believe someone can actually be like this. But then the reality check hits.

  • p0w3n3d 2 hours ago

    There has been also DDoS against my friend's employer ISP. He had to work a lot to mitigate. There was a random request before

  • spapas82 an hour ago

    Would the attack be successful is the Norwegian government used a way to protect itself against ddos like cloudflare or akamai?

  • leke an hour ago

    The bus card ride purchase system was down today in my part of Finland. I wonder if it is related.

  • kachnuv_ocasek an hour ago

    Bets on which AI lab it is this time?

  • AtNightWeCode an hour ago

    Many important services with problems. Ouch. My guess is that the root cause is misconfiguration rather than an attack.

  • nubg an hour ago

    putler?

    • motbus3 an hour ago

      Could be, but it does not look like any of the ways they done before. Anyone who benefits from instability would be at win, from internal political competition, foreign companies trying to sell flocked up systems and the list could be huge.

      Not saying it was not who you think it was, Im just saying it does not have enough information yet to be the only explanation or at least the most obvious one.

    • cyanydeez an hour ago

      could just be openai.

    • coffinbirth an hour ago

      Your comment is dumb and disgusting. You're comparing Putin with Hitler, thereby showing that you don't know that relatives of Putin were killed by Hitler's troops, e.g. his brother during the siege of Leningrad (1+ million civilians killed), his grandmother was killed as a civilian, his uncles perished during frontline service and his father was severely wounded[1].

      By the way, numerous high ranking German politicians regularly also do this kind of comparison, showing the lack of knowledge about the history of their own country. Can anyone show me JUST A SINGLE MEMORIAL in Germany for the 20+ million (lower bound estimate) people killed on the eastern front? Yes, there is one in the heart of Berlin, which the Soviets built in 1945!

      [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Vladimir_Putin

      • CursedSilicon an hour ago

        Whispers

        Hey, hey

        Did you know

        Multiple things can in fact, be bad

        • coffinbirth 43 minutes ago

          I immediately knew that you are an U.S. American, because of you total lack of knowledge about European history. It's always the same old story, Americans and their lack of education about global topics.

          • CursedSilicon 3 minutes ago

            Australian but go off :)

          • rcxdude 23 minutes ago

            This is a non-sequitur.

          • matkoniecz 16 minutes ago

            As someone from Poland I want to confirm that multiple things can be in fact bad.

            Being invaded by Nazi Germany and days later by their ally, Russia was example of such case.

            • justsomehnguy 8 minutes ago

              As someone from Poland you are conveniently ignore what your country did years before that.

              -webster.com/dictionary/polonization

              • matkoniecz 4 minutes ago

                At no point I claimed that Poland was land of saints and cuddly bears. See also Bereza Kartuska.

                What you linked does not change at all that being invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany and Soviet Union was absolutely awful and both were clearly evil.

                (and if you want to start oppression olympics, then yes: what Germany and Russia did was far worse than Poland did, for that matter what Ukrainian OUN UPA did was far worse than what Poland did)

      • indemnity an hour ago

        Maybe you should stop invading other countries if these comparisons hurt your feelings buddy.

        • coffinbirth an hour ago

          I always find it unbelievable how people do not know or just forget about what happened in the east 85 years ago. Really sad. This is one of the primary reasons why people in the west don't understand why Russia cannot accept Ukraine in NATO. It was NATO that expanded to the east, contrary to the agreements after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia said for decades that Ukraine in NATO is unacceptable.

          • anon48293 33 minutes ago

            Ukraine sought NATO membership AFTER Russia attacked in 2014, not before.

            Since you’re such a history buff, what did Russia promise when Ukraine got rid of their nukes?

            • coffinbirth 4 minutes ago

              > Ukraine got rid of their nukes

              Russia is the official successor state of the Soviet Union, the nukes never belonged to Ukraine in the first place.

          • SukadarBukadar 23 minutes ago

            Let me tell you what's actually "really sad": Bucha as a response to sovereign country's attempt to join NATO. Having a hostile country as a neighbour isn't an excuse for starting a war with it.

            • coffinbirth a minute ago

              Following this logic Mexico and Canada can both join a military alliance with China and Russia, I guess the U.S. must accept that, both are sovereign country's after all...

          • antonvs 4 minutes ago

            > Russia said for decades that Ukraine in NATO is unacceptable.

            Russia, as a hostile nation not interested in participating in global peace, doesn’t get to decide such things.

          • matkoniecz 30 minutes ago

            > what happened in the east 85 years ago

            Russia got attacked by their ally, Nazi Germany. After 87 years ago in 1939 they invaded together Poland.

            > Really sad.

            Yeah, Russia going on to win WW II was quite sad. Admittedly better than Nazis winning but pity they have not both lost.

            > contrary to the agreements after the fall of the Soviet Union

            which supposed agreements? Were they any more binding than Budapest Memorandum?

            > Russia said for decades that Ukraine in NATO is unacceptable.

            And Russia in Ukraine is unacceptable for us.

  • roschdal an hour ago

    The Internet was supposed to withstand a nuclear attack

    • buildbot an hour ago

      "The internet" is currently fine, besides Norwegian government services.

      Also something designed to withstand something does not imply it survives other somethings.

    • pprotas an hour ago

      Guess a nuclear attack would actually lessen the load on the global internet, rather than increase it - like a DDOS would!