HSL was the target of an extraordinary online attack in the New Year.
Helsinki problems with the regional transport (HSL) application, route guide and website on New Year's Eve were caused by a denial of service attack.
The matter is confirmed by HSL's technology director Tuomas Savikangas for HS.
The denial-of-service attack widely targeted HSL's digital services. HSL has filed a criminal complaint with the police.
According to Savikanka, it is not known who was behind the attack. He states that the harassment was exceptionally strong.
“We are not able to direct the disruption to any individual operator. The attackers don't leave any business cards, and you can't say much about the origin of the traffic.”
Attack took place between the early evening of New Year's Eve and the afternoon of New Year's Day. Savikangas says there is no risk of customers' data ending up in the wrong hands.
“No risk whatsoever. Our service has been bombed, but our systems have not been hacked.”
In practice, the attack was about diverting large amounts of network traffic to HSL's network services.
Savikangas compares the situation to a situation where online services would be used at the same time by a much larger number of people than the potential number of public transport users in the capital region.
How this kind of thing happened just when there were a lot of people in traffic?
“A cyber attack is typically carried out when the attack is as inconvenient or critical as possible for the target of the attack,” says Savikangas.
From this point of view, the New Year is the perfect time. It is then a national holiday, when the ability to respond to attacks is limited.
“At that time there are also a lot of people on the move who use public transport. An opportune time.”
According to Savikanka, HSL will make plans for further measures after the attack has been investigated.
“We are constantly improving our ability to respond and prevent these attacks.”
There are some attacks on HSL every year, but harassment like the one seen now happens extremely rarely, says Savikangas.
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