The Top-Five Most Famous DDoS Attacks in 2020

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, a subclass of denial of service (DoS) attacks, have existed since the earliest days of the Internet, and are now becoming more frequent. The data shows that in Q1 2020, DDoS attacks increased 24% over the same period compared to the previous year. In Q2, attacks doubled again. 

In this article, Fazzaco will briefly introduce the five most famous DDoS attacks in 2020.

1. Australian Banks DDoS Extortion in February

On February 25, 2020, Australian banks and other financial institutions were being extorted with DDoS attacks unless they paid extortion fees that needs to be paid in the form of Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency.

Soon, the Silence group has claimed the responsibility of this threat campaign. In addition, this criminal gang has also been linked to stealing from banks across Eastern Europe, South and Central Asia, and more recently, Sub-Saharan Africa. 

2. Finastra Ransomware Attack in March

On March 20, 2020, Finastra, one of the largest fintech companies in theworld, stated they were the victim of a ransomware attack. The company was forced to shut down certain servers in response to the attack which had most impact on their North America operations.

Luckily, there was no evidence of customer or employee data exfiltration, according to the company.

3. Pepperstone Data Breach in July

On July, 2020, Pepperstone, an award-winning online FX and CFD broker, warned its clients of data security breach as fraudsters are reaching out to Pepperstone clients, asking them to transfer their client funds.

Later, on September, the broker has been hit again by cyber attacks for the second time within two months.

Pepperstone said they believed the two attacks were connected and were very likely to be launched by the same criminals.

​Compromised information in the first attack mainly included customer name, contacts, brith data, with no information breach risks of accounts, passwords, or bank accounts. In the second attack, Pepperstone said their customer relationship management database was targeted and financial systems including its online trading platform remained safe.

4. New Zealand Stock Exchange DDoS Attack in August

On 26 August 2020, the New Zealand Stock Exchange announced on its website that it has experienced a volumetric DDoS attack from offshore via its network service provider, which impacted NZX network connectivity. As a result, the exchange decided to close down its operations.

The hackers demanded Bitcoin payments as extortion fees to prevent the attack.

5. Japanese Exchanges Technical Glitch in October

On October 1, 2020, a technical glitch forced a full-day trading halt on Japan's stock exchanges, including the Nikkei 225. 

The glitch originted from a malfunction in the hardware that powers the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), according to the Japan Exchange Group, the exchange’s operator.

The halt wasn't connected to a cyber attack. Trading was suspended at the main Tokyo stock exchange along with connected bourses in Nagoya, Fukuoka and Sapporo.

In addition to the DDoS attacks mentioned above, other high-profile events in 2020 include the Coincheck Data Breach (in June), Scotiabank Data Breach (in July), Hungarian Banks DDoS Attack (in September), and European Central Bank Technical Glitch (in October).

As customers are increasingly concerned of the protection against DDoS attacks, making it important for brokers to protect them from attacks and increase network performance.