A large-scale incident earlier this week against Belnet & other ISPs has sent a ‘tsunami’ of internet disruption across numerous Belgian Govt., scientific & educational institutions.
Belgian ISP Belnet has restored its service after a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack earlier this week that cut off Internet access to numerous government, public, scientific & educational agencies, including Belgium’s Parliament & some law-enforcement agencies.
Institutions
The attack occurred Tues. at 11am (GMT) in Europe & affected “all the institutions connected to the Belnet network,” which number about 200, according to a statement published Wed. on Belnet’s website.
Upon investigation, it seems the attack–a coordinated effort targeting the Belgium Govt.–also affected other ISPs in what was the largest DDoS attack the country has seen, according to reports. Belgium as the HQ of the European Union (EU) is a key hub of activity & decision-making that affects the global political & socio-economic sphere.
Restored Service
While Belnet restored service to its own network & website by Tues. evening, the attack continues to have ongoing consequences, with some customers still unable to connect to websites & online services, according to Belnet.
“We are fully aware of the impact on the organisations connected to our network & their users & we are aware that this has profoundly disrupted their functioning,” Dirk Haex, Technical Director at Belnet, commented in the statement.
However, the attack was “of such a scale that our entire network was saturated,” he observed. “The fact that the perpetrators of the attack constantly changed tactics made it even more difficult to neutralise it,” Haex explained.
Intrusion
There is no indication that cyber-criminals have infiltrated the network of any of the institutions or organisations affected, as it appears the attack was aimed solely at saturating networks to disrupt traffic, he added.
Belnet told news outlet VRT, which also was disrupted due to the attack, that it was the 1st time the service provider had been confronted with such a “gigantic data flow.”
The massive scale of the attack indicates that threat actors did not have Belnet in their crosshairs but aimed to take down the network of the Belgian Govt., Geert Baudewijns, CEO of security company Secutec, told VRT. Secutec providers security services for the Belgian Govt.
29 Countries
“This was done via all telecom providers,” he explained in the VRT report. “Providers such as Telenet & Proximus have also received this attack.”
Traffic flow that flooded networks in the attack came from some 29 countries, according to reports, although the original source or perpetrator of the attack has not yet been identified, according to Belnet.
Law Enforcement & Parliament Meetings Disrupted
The Brussels Times Wed. reported on some of the specific & ongoing effects of the attack across Belgium’s public agencies. Belgium’s Parliament had to postpone several meetings due to the attack, according to the report.
The incident also took down access to online services for metropolitan police forces, such as those in Brussels & Antwerp, as well as the City of Brussels website. All have been restored as of Thurs. morning in Europe.
Distance Learning
The attack also caused problems for distance learning at several universities & colleges, which continue to offer online services due to the ongoing pandemic, as well as caused ticket-purchasing problems with Brussel’s transit company, STIB.
Belnet, the Centre for Cyber=security Belgium & other authorities & security organisations are continuing to monitor & investigate the situation, & Belnet has filed a complaint with Belgium’s Federal Computer Crime Unit.
