Posted on November 8, 2018 at 5:48 PM
4 Cambodia’s ISPs Attacked by DDoS
4 biggest internet service providers in Cambodia have been attacked by large-scale DDoS attacks. The motivation behind the series of attack is unknown as there hasn’t been any hacktivist campaigns or ransom demanded.
Recently, numerous Cambodia’s internet service provider giants were attacked by a large-scale DDoS attack within the last few days. This report indicated that users of Digi, Telcotech, SINET, and EZECOM confirmed challenges accessing online services throughout the week. Most of these issues became serious on Monday, and Tuesday, one report indicated.
However, local news in Cambodia called the recent “DDoS attack” as the biggest attack to have occurred in the history of the country. Sources familiar with the incident reveal that DDoS attacks totaling about 150Gbps have struck Cambodian ISPs on Monday. This attack leads to a downtime, which lasted for almost half a day with internet access speeds slowed down throughout the week. Similarly, smaller-sized DDoS attacks have continued to hit the Cambodian ISPs.
On Monday, SINET issued a press release apologizing for the technical problems faced throughout the country as it affects internet connectivity. In a similar fashion, EZECOM released its statement. However, in a swift reaction, some users pointed out that EZECOM, which is a company that offers DDoS mitigation services didn’t have the capacity to safeguard its infrastructure on its own and required outside specialists to solve the issues.
This recent DDoS attacks on ISPs in Cambodian were flagrantly evident as internet traffic charts indicated a big connectivity dip along with latency spikes observed immediately. The primary reason behind this attack is unknown. The ISPs haven’t reported that a ransom demand is requested, neither has there been any chatter regarding the issue on social media by any hacktivist campaigns. The ISPs are still trying to figure out the motivation behind this attack considering the fact that the country is not in any civil or political unrest. Besides this, there have been a series of attacks on websites and companies. However, security experts have advised internet users to be on the watch out as these attacks may continue to rise.
Past History of a similar attack by a UK Citizen
Another theory that is been suggested is that the incident may be an inter-ISP sabotage considering previous happenings. In a similar incident in November 2016, a notorious DDoS botnet targeted and took down some of Liberia’s internet service providers. The attack perpetrated by a UK teen with the hacker pseudonym “BestBuy” had a rough estimate of 500Gps. Later, the attacker admitted in a German court to have perpetuated the DDoS attack after being paid the sum of $10,000 by an ISP provider in Liberian to take down its competitors.
