An attack DDoS unprecedented has led to destabilization of broadband across Sweden this week.
While the DDoS attacks we have known so far only typically affect the target, this attack has affected the broadband connections of an entire country. This happened to Telia customers, Sweden's largest ISP, for 45 minutes on Tuesday night and then again at intervals throughout Wednesday afternoon and evening.
Telia has not announced how many of the 1,2 million household subscribers were affected by the holidays, but confirmed the attack and knockdown of fixed broadband, digital TV, and VoIP connections.
The company issued a statement Wednesday night highlighting the fact that the problem had been solved and that it was investigating the source of the attack. Initially they thought it was the target of the attack, but a company spokesman told ZDNet that the target was an online Gaming site.
“Η Telia δεν ήταν ο πρωταρχικός στόχος. Ο στόχος ήταν μια εταιρεία παιχνιδιών στο διαδίκτυο που της επιτέθηκαν στέλνοντας έστειλαν μαζική κίνηση στους διακομιστές DNS, που δεν μπορούσαμε να διαχειριστούμε. Βεβαίως, θα ερευνήσουμε το περιστατικό περαιτέρω”, δήλωσε ο εκπρόσωπος της Telia. Αρνήθηκε όμως να κατονομάσει την ιστοσελίδα.
In accordance with Swedish news agency TT, the group behind the attack was the LizardSquad. Last week, the team took over responsibility for shutting down the Sony PlayStation network and a previous attack on Microsoft Xbox Live shutdown.
LizardSquad claimed through Twitter Thursday to hit the Electronic Arts game company offline.
The attack was so strong that at an Ericsson event in Stockholm, TeliaSonera CEO Johan Dennelind said the DDoS attack made "Sweden not work".
"Our ISP has faced DDoS attacks, this was particularly 'heavy,'" he said. "We have not seen another attack of this magnitude," Dennilind said.
