Expert: Sweden’s DoS cyber-attack could also happen in Finland, and in fact it already has
The malicious denial-of-service (DoS) cyber attack that rendered numerous Swedish media and governmental web sites inoperative on Thursday could also happen in Finland, says head of division Erka Koivunen, from the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA).
Among other things, the attack carried out via the Internet crippled a server that maintains around 40 Swedish online publications.
The attack also targeted police information systems and the social networking site Facebook.
With falsified messages sent from addresses in Russia, Facebook users were urged to download a message that was infected with a computer virus.
“Similar stuff has also happened in Finland. There is nothing unusual about this”, Koivunen says.
As an example, Koivunen mentions an attack from last August against a server of the lottery and sports gambling monopoly Veikkaus.
The company’s system crashed when home computers infected with malicious software started flooding the Veikkaus server with interfering messages.
According to Koivunen, the most straightforward way to crash a server is to use the overflow of information.
“The attack can then come from a multitude of sources distributed all over the Internet.”
“All these sources send only a moderate amount of information. When the packages arrive at their destination, however, the small creeks form a torrent that exceeds the system’s capacity.”
In Koivunen’s view there are also more sophisticated ways of paralysing a server.
“For example, one can take advantage of a software application’s weaknesses or programming errors. This way the target server’s use of memory can unexpectedly be ramped up.”
“This leads to the server becoming so preoccupied that it fails to serve any more clients.”
So, how can such attacks be prevented?
“Over-dimensioning the capacity of services is one way, but it costs money. This means providing such robust servers that they can handle anything.“
Among other things, the attack carried out via the Internet crippled a server that maintains around 40 Swedish online publications.
The attack also targeted police information systems and the social networking site Facebook.
With falsified messages sent from addresses in Russia, Facebook users were urged to download a message that was infected with a computer virus.
“Similar stuff has also happened in Finland. There is nothing unusual about this”, Koivunen says.
As an example, Koivunen mentions an attack from last August against a server of the lottery and sports gambling monopoly Veikkaus.
The company’s system crashed when home computers infected with malicious software started flooding the Veikkaus server with interfering messages.
According to Koivunen, the most straightforward way to crash a server is to use the overflow of information.
“The attack can then come from a multitude of sources distributed all over the Internet.”
“All these sources send only a moderate amount of information. When the packages arrive at their destination, however, the small creeks form a torrent that exceeds the system’s capacity.”
In Koivunen’s view there are also more sophisticated ways of paralysing a server.
“For example, one can take advantage of a software application’s weaknesses or programming errors. This way the target server’s use of memory can unexpectedly be ramped up.”
“This leads to the server becoming so preoccupied that it fails to serve any more clients.”
So, how can such attacks be prevented?
“Over-dimensioning the capacity of services is one way, but it costs money. This means providing such robust servers that they can handle anything.“
Helsingin Sanomat