The August cyber attacks targeted a dozen Russian banks

Up to 15 Russian financial organizations were subjected to a large-scale cyberattack in August and September of this year.

The first deputy head of the Information Security Department of the Bank of Russia, Artem Sychev, said that 10-15 Russian financial organizations that serve e-commerce were subjected to cyber attacks in August and early September.

According to him, it was several DDoS attacks. “Most of these attacks were repelled in an automated mode by the means that financial organizations have,” Sychev noted.

Financial CERT (Financial Sector Computer Emergency Response Team, a special division of the Bank of Russia) also helped to cope with the attacks, which quickly notified banks about the attacks and connected telecom operators to solving problems. They helped to quickly redirect traffic and enable tools that filter malicious traffic.

According to Sychev, the attacks were serious, but the attackers failed to disrupt the performance of credit institutions.

“But, nevertheless, there is such a risk of dependence on monopoly service providers for financial organizations,” he added.

“The events that took place in Russia in August and early September and were associated with massive DDoS attacks clearly showed that it is not enough for us, as the financial industry, to exchange information with each other, we need to do this with telecom operators, as they are the basis for interaction between customers and financial organizations. How quickly we can interact between financial organizations and telecom operators largely depends on how quickly we can respond to the attacks that occur in the financial sector, and how quickly we can cope with these attacks,” Sychev added.

On September 2, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank Stanislav Kuznetsov said that the bank had successfully repelled the world’s most powerful DDoS attack on the financial sector.