COVID-19 Payouts Disrupted As Heartless Hackers Attack Italian Crisis Benefits Site

By Davey Winder for Forbes
Thursday, April 2, 2020

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Italian police have been informed of the ongoing cyberattacks, and the ruling Democratic Party has suggested that national security services could be put on the case of finding out who is responsible. Deputy party leader, Andrea Orlando, told Reuters that "These jackals must be stopped immediately." But that could prove a lot easier said than done.

"The website is already tremendously overloaded with legitimate users desperately seeking help among this unprecedentedly disastrous crisis," Ilia Kolochenko, CEO of web security company ImmuniWeb, said, "hence, even a tiny botnet is now apt to substantially disrupt the website’s availability and performance."

The worst-case scenario

That's assuming this isn't something worse, much worse. "The most dangerous scenario is, however, if a professional cyber gang is behind this disgraceful attack," Kolochenko said, adding "they will likely exploit some weaknesses and architectural flaws of the web application to boost the amplitude of the DDoS, eventually expecting to get a ransom for stopping their activities."

Which would leave the Italian authorities in a challenging position, having to choose between two evils: pay the ransom and start a flood of similar attacks on government assets, refuse and leave vulnerable people unable to get financial help when they need it the most. "I hope DDoS protection companies will soon offer their help to the affected agencies," Kolochenko concluded, "otherwise, we will see the first large-scale example when cybercriminals are factually taking human lives away." Read Full Article