Security News > 2020 > March > HHS Says DDoS Attack Failed to Cause Disruption
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was targeted with a distributed denial-of-service attack on Sunday, but the agency said it did not experience any significant disruption as a result of the incident.
"Incident response takes time, and as this just occurred last night, more time for investigations will be required. Based on reporting, this appears to be some sort of denial of service attack and the barrier to entry for DOS attacks are low."
"DDoS attacks are not sophisticated, but the timing of the attack and potential motive raises significant concern," Stephen Boyce, principal consultant at the Crypsis Group, said via email.
"The goal of these attacks is to prevent legitimate users from accessing HHS websites and systems. These attacks could also be a precursor for a larger attack that may result in data access and or exfiltration."
"The most prominent targets of such attacks are institutions that are providing information to the public regarding COVID-19. These institutions include: local, state, federal, and tribal government agencies, media outlets, pharmaceuticals companies, and healthcare industries. We should expect more DDoS attacks on the institutions mentioned above and an increase in spear-phishing attacks as well," Boyce added.
News URL
Related news
- Average DDoS attack costs $6,000 per minute (source)
- CUPS vulnerabilities could be abused for DDoS attacks (source)
- Cloudflare blocks largest recorded DDoS attack peaking at 3.8Tbps (source)
- Recently patched CUPS flaw can be used to amplify DDoS attacks (source)
- Cloudflare Thwarts Largest-Ever 3.8 Tbps DDoS Attack Targeting Global Sectors (source)
- Largest Recorded DDoS Attack is 3.8 Tbps (source)
- New Gorilla Botnet Launches Over 300,000 DDoS Attacks Across 100 Countries (source)