On Tuesday 4th May, Belgium government websites and services were disrupted after leading Internet Service Provider Belnet fell victim to a gigantic cyber-attack. At 11:00 CEST the company experienced a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack which resulted in overwhelming Belnet’s servers and making their services inoperable. According to Belnet, the attack took place on Tuesday morning affecting more than 200 institutions and organizations that use the company’s services including Belgium Federal Parliament.
Universities, Public offices and research institutes’ websites were left entirely or partially inaccessible due to the enormous cyber-attack.
ISP said, “There is no indication that cybercriminals have infiltrated any network. Everything indicates that the attack was aimed solely at saturating the Belnet network“.
We are fully aware of the impact on the organizations connected to our network and their users and we are aware that this has profoundly disrupted their functioning. Belnet continually invests in cybersecurity.
However, yesterday’s DDoS attack was of such a scale that our entire network was saturated. The fact that the perpetrators of the attack constantly changed tactics made it even more difficult to neutralize it “, Dirk Haex, technical director at Belnet, said on Wednesday.
As per Belgian network provider reports, ultimately Belnet and Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium were successful in bringing the attack under control, therefore, mitigating its impact.
The situation is reported to be stable yet Belnet remains vigilant to counter in case the storm isn’t fully over yet. There was no mention of who was behind the attack.