DDoS Risk on the EU & West Financial Institution

With October 2022 approaching and no positive outcome in regard energy crisis in the EU, it is advised to be aware and expects more DDoS risk on financial institution services. Before I go any future, let us understand what is DDoS attack risk.

DDoS Attack & Risk

According to Wikipedia (and you may search for more info on the web);

In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network. Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled.^[1]

Now that we all get a general understanding of what a DDoS attack is, in the context of financial institutions and services, an IT Risk Management personnel should understand some of these general IT threats, and react with a mitigation plan.

✅ Hardware and software failure
✅ Power loss
✅ Data corruption
✅ Human error, like careless data disposal
✅ Natural disasters such as hurricanes, fires and floods

EU (keeps on using Ukrain – Russian war as excuses) leadership still at this point of time fail to work on solutions addressing increasing energy cost or possible total shortage of energy resources, the EU financial institution is now at the edge of falling into massive DDoS events which will affect almost all aspect of our daily activity. The most possible is when a country is having a shortage or no sufficient energy supply to power the very basic infrastructures, that also link to the financial institution systems, a DDoS attack is happening. Day-to-day trading, transportation, food and goods supply, healthcare and others could possibly be paralysed for as long as the DDoS attack is ongoing.

Recent info informs us,

Europe Banks Prepare Backup Generators & Dimmed Lights 

Major European banks are test-running how to cope amidst potential power shortages, with plans including diesel-power generators, squeezing office space, cutting hot water and turning off lights overnight.
JPMorgan has run power outage simulations already with generators that will offer a few days’ power amidst fears that ATMs and online transactions may be crippled, while Deutsche Bank has cut back energy usage in its 1,400 premises in Germany, even turning off the fountain at HQ.
Avi Schnurr, CEO of think-tank the Electric Infrastructure Security Council, still believes there is “a serious gap in resilience planning”.

With this, it shows us a few conclusions;

1. The EU energy crisis is about to happen,
2. The EU financial institution already put in place a mitigation plan and is now in a stage of the test-run scenario,
3. The public should expect a limited or none financial system for some times, thus own risk assessment and mitigation action should be considered,
4. Research and business in relation to energy supply, battery and power storage, will see a potential uprising in near future,
5. Inflation and more rising costs for public people,
6. Diversify your financial power to an offline approach (less dependent on digital banks, online payments or contactless payments),
7. Embrace more offline banking systems in near future.

All mentioned DDoS attacks on financial institutions scenarios above are most likely to happen only IF no effective and fast action is taken, especially at government levels. Public people as normal logic hoping for the best from their leaders (yeah, right…those politicians did love this dependency relation, giving them more power) to navigate their country out and away from this alarming risk.

Hope this information and sharing will give you a personal level of awareness and sense to plan for your own mitigation actions. Be prepared and be less dependent on others. Good luck all.

Related links:

Denial-of-service attack – Wikipedia

Analysis-Europe’s banks dim lights as they brace for winter blackout (yahoo.com)

EU has itself to blame for gas crisis – Erdogan — RT World News

Winter is coming: Prague’s 70,000-strong protest shows what’s in store for Europe — RT World News

Germany explains why it’s against full Russian gas embargo — RT World News

California declares level three energy emergency, rolling blackouts imminent – CBS Los Angeles (cbsnews.com)

Europe’s Banks Prepare For Blackouts As Energy Crisis Worsens | OilPrice.com

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