RBS: NatWest Site Hit By DDoS

A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack hit the NatWest website on Friday, preventing some users from properly using the RBS-owned banking site.

Problems started late on Thursday and continued through to Friday, when the main attack took place, according to reports. RBS apologised for the “inconvenience caused”.

“Due to a surge in internet traffic deliberately directed at the NatWest website, customers experienced difficulties accessing some of our web sites today,” an advisory on the RBS website read.

DDoS disrupts NatWest

“This deliberate surge of traffic is known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. We have taken action to restore the affected web sites. At no time was there any risk to customers.”

RBS had already experienced systems faults on Monday last week, which saw millions of customers unable to access their money. The bank had an infamous failure last year, which cost the company at least £175 million as it sought to make amends.

US banks had been pummeled by attackers claiming to be acting in retaliation for the “Innocence of Muslims” video that had caused such a furore across the Islamic world. Major organisations such as Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo had all seen their websites disrupted.

British banks have largely avoided disruption from digital attacks. HSBC reported a DDoS on its site in late 2012, but little has been seen since then.

Attempts to install keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) machine were made at Barclays and Santander earlier this year, but the banks prevented any losses and arrests of the alleged perpetrators were made.

DDoS attacks are getting ever more powerful and can lead to significant losses for those organisations who see large numbers of transactions taking place on their website.

RBS was awarded a Tech Success award by TechWeekEurope last week, for a system developed with Websense  that involves end users in preventing data loss.

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