April 20, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

The exam system data bank has been under attack for 2 days in a row. ND Claims “Cyber ​​Attack”

For the second day in a row, the exam platform, that is, the data bank that provides exam questions, is offline due to a powerful DDoS attack, causing outrage among thousands of high school students and teachers.

The New Democracy, although not currently in power, but it was under its leadership that the electronic database system was created, said that it was “historically the largest hacker attack” from 114 countries and 165 million clicks per hour on the platform * .

ND spokesman Akis Skertsos blamed the failure on the provisional government. It should be noted that the interim government began to fulfill its duties on the weekend. However, the spokesman went further, blaming SYRIZA for the failure as well. “We could do something, but now we have an interim government because of SYRIZA”Skertsos said.

There has been no response from either the acting Minister of Education or his colleague in charge of digital governance, of which the ND is very proud.

In any event, the report of the hack called on Supreme Court Prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos to intervene and order an investigation with the assistance of the Cyber ​​Crime Unit of the Greek Police. Among other things, Dogiakos specified that law enforcement agencies seeking to find the perpetrators may proceed to confiscate evidence that could lead to the perpetrators. State broadcaster ERT said that the IP addresses of the hackers would be determined.

On Monday and Tuesday, a platform glitch severely disrupted exam dates in Greek high schools across the country, leading to many hours of delays and even exam cancellations. A press release later Tuesday announced that an investigation by the Greek Police Cybercrime Unit was already under way, with experienced officers gathering evidence that could lead to the seizure of findings leading to the perpetrators.

Some general secretaries for cybersecurity and education told Mega TV – Live News that “the attack was a provocation against the stability of the country” and was “aimed at students.” There were reports in the media that the cost of the cyberattack was estimated at 200,000 euros on Tuesday alone.

PS 165 million requests per day – in our time it is relatively small, namely 2 times less than a similar attack on our site a month ago, which also lasted for 7 days. As for the prices, apparently, the authors are not aware, but now such an attack costs between 5-10 euros per hour (for more than 3 days – a significant discount), which even Greek students can pull without any problems.

Thank the Ukrainian hackers, as well as the countries of the “collective West”, primarily the United States, Israel and Britain, who provided the best resources, tools and training methods for free to fight “Mordor”, as a result of which the cost of a botnet involving millions of devices fell to symbolic values ​​earlier amounts.

PPS Is it difficult for the Ministry of Digitalization and the Ministry of Education of Greece, on whose order the system was created, to find security specialists? I do not believe. Most likely, the reason is that “their” companies were engaged in this business, and what level such organizations have, the result showed.



Source link

Verified by MonsterInsights