News
The distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack caused a website failure and service disruption for around 12 hours
Today, Japan’s largest mobile operator, NTT Docomo, has revealed it has suffered a cyberattack, impacting a number of services.
The DDoS attack reportedly resulted in a system glitch at 5:27am, which disrupted access to several services – such as the company website and the company’s ‘goo’ portal – for almost 12 hours.
Mobile and other communication services were notably unaffected, though customers reported difficulty accessing the company’s ‘d payment’ mobile money service.
Cyberattacks on telecoms operators have been increasing in potency in recent years. While this attack on Docomo was relatively benign, more sophisticated attacks can put the data from millions of customers at risk. Last year, for example, a data breach at AT&T saw data from 73 million customers leaked on the dark web.
Cyberattacks are typically motivated by financial gain, primarily via blackmailing the victim or the sale of the stolen data. However, as the world becomes increasingly politically unstable we are seeing activity by state-supported hacker groups focus more on surveillance and sabotage for geopolitical ends.
Indeed, this was seemingly the motivation for a string of attacks reported at the end of last year, in which the Chinese hacker group Salt Typhoon was linked to a series of cyberattacks on the US telecoms sector. These attacks compromised data from at least nine major service providers, including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
US Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner dubbed the breach “the worst telecom hack in our nation’s history – by far.”
Keep up to date with all the latest telecoms news from around the world with the Total Telecom newsletter
Also in the news:
VEON and Starlink to launch Direct-to-Cell Satellite connectivity in Ukraine
Swisscom completes acquisition of Vodafone Italia
Equinix to buy BT’s Irish data centre business for €59m