The hackers behind the DDoS attacks are believed to have generated the huge amounts of data by taking over smart devices such as webcams and digital video recorders that use easy to guess passwords.
Sberbank, a state-owned bank, was one target of the prolonged attacks. Security firm Kaspersky said the attacks were among the largest it had seen aimed at Russian banks. The names of the other banks that were hit have not been released but all are believed to be among the 10 biggest in Russia, according to BBC.
Hackers surged the banks’ websites by deluging them with data in what is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The data floods began on 8 November and have continued intermittently ever since. Most of the data deluges lasted about 60 minutes but the most persistent attack went on for almost 12 hours, the security company said.
In a statement, Sberbank said it was able to neutralise the attack without affecting its website operations. The bank said it had suffered 68 similar attacks in 2016 but the ones in November ranked among the biggest it had faced.
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