Generalitat websites have been hit by a cyber attack

Generalitat websites hit by cyber attack

Several websites of the Generalitat de Catalunya have suffered an unknown computer attack today, Friday, December 3. This has resulted in some of their services not working.

The attack, discovered by the Department of Digital Policies, affected the communications hub of the Generalitat. Pages such as those of the Corporacio Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (CCMA), and TV-3 and Catalunya Radio were affected.

Both entities chose to use their Twitter accounts in order to continue reporting through those channels. The services of La Meva Salut have also been affected, which were already inundated with requests from citizens for covid passport certificates, which became mandatory today, Friday 3.

According to the Department of Digital Policies, led by Jordi Puignero, the necessary countermeasures have been activated by Catalonia’s Cybersecurity Agency. They believe it could presumably be a denial of service attack (DoS), which occurs when thousands of computers try to connect to a server in an attempt to saturate it.

According to Puignero, computer scientists will investigate and analyse the cyberattack and then put it “in the hands of whoever corresponds” if they identify the perpetrator to assess the responsibilities.

Puignero indicated that “it seems that a powerful organization is behind this”, He insisted that they will analyse the intention behind the cyber attack. “If everything goes well, soon everything will be restored, and it will mean a failed attempt, with few hours of affectation”.

This type of denial of service attack (DDOS) is very different from those that affected the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and several Catalan companies last month. Those attacks were computer and database hijackings based on a computer virus, as reported by elperiodico.com.

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