Berlin (dpa) – Germany’s national institute for disease control was late in reporting the country’s daily coronavirus statistics on Wednesday, in an incident that has been blamed on cybercriminals.
Hackers targeted the website of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack between the hours of 8 and 10 am (0700-0900 GMT), a spokesman for the ITZBund federal agency for information technology said.
A DDoS attack involves online traffic, usually sent via multiple hijacked computers, overwhelming a platform and causing it to freeze or crash.
ITZBund, which runs the RKI website, said it was not yet clear who was behind the attack and that an investigation had been launched.
The RKI has been in the spotlight this year due to its central role in monitoring infections and informing the public about the pandemic.
On Sunday, the institute became the target of arsonists who threw incendiary bottles at one of its buildings in Berlin.
The attackers were able to flee. No one was injured in the incident.
Be the first to comment on "Hackers blamed for delay in daily German coronavirus data"