- Nov 3, 2019
- 413
Cybercriminals found in the context of a public health crisis that caused unprecedented restrictions affecting the restaurant industry a perfect opportunity to launch an attack on the systems of Takeaway food delivery service in Germany.
The measures adopted by the country to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus have a drastic impact on social life. Restaurants function under strict rules that limit the number of guests, impose a greater distance between the tables, and have to stay closed between 6pm and 6am.
Under these conditions, many Germans order in through food delivery services like Takeaway.com (Lieferando.de). Yet cybercriminals have launched a distributed denial-of-service attack on the website demanding 2 bitcoins (around $11,000) to stop the siege.
Jitse Groen, the founder and CEO of Takeaway, today posted on Twitter the news of the attack. He attached a screenshot with the attacker's demand that threatened to attack other company sites.
Soon after Groen's tweet, the German branch of the company announced that its systems had been attacked and entered in maintenance mode "to ensure the security of all data." This could cause delays in order processing.
Some customers complained that the service accepted new orders, despite its systems being crippled by the attack, and they are not being processed.
In a subsequent tweet, the website informed that it would refund orders that had been paid online and were not delivered. This would not happen automatically, though, and customers would have to contact them via email.
Lieferando boasts food delivery from more than 15,000 restaurants in Germany, so the impact of a DDoS attack is significant; not just for customers but for restaurant owners, too.
Times of crisis are typically when cybercriminals strike. As people in countries trying to slow COVID-19 infections are following social distancing recommendations, delivery services are experiencing an overload.
As this situation continues, heinous acts like this are likely to happen, especially from less-skilled attackers. More experienced actors may find a moral compass and take a break for the duration of the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus.
At least two ransomware actors stated that they would stop targeting health and medical organizations. Hospitals already have enough to deal with and any downtime they experience can cost human lives.
At the time of publishing, Lieferando website was up and running.
The measures adopted by the country to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus have a drastic impact on social life. Restaurants function under strict rules that limit the number of guests, impose a greater distance between the tables, and have to stay closed between 6pm and 6am.
Under these conditions, many Germans order in through food delivery services like Takeaway.com (Lieferando.de). Yet cybercriminals have launched a distributed denial-of-service attack on the website demanding 2 bitcoins (around $11,000) to stop the siege.
Jitse Groen, the founder and CEO of Takeaway, today posted on Twitter the news of the attack. He attached a screenshot with the attacker's demand that threatened to attack other company sites.
Soon after Groen's tweet, the German branch of the company announced that its systems had been attacked and entered in maintenance mode "to ensure the security of all data." This could cause delays in order processing.
Some customers complained that the service accepted new orders, despite its systems being crippled by the attack, and they are not being processed.
In a subsequent tweet, the website informed that it would refund orders that had been paid online and were not delivered. This would not happen automatically, though, and customers would have to contact them via email.
Lieferando boasts food delivery from more than 15,000 restaurants in Germany, so the impact of a DDoS attack is significant; not just for customers but for restaurant owners, too.
Times of crisis are typically when cybercriminals strike. As people in countries trying to slow COVID-19 infections are following social distancing recommendations, delivery services are experiencing an overload.
As this situation continues, heinous acts like this are likely to happen, especially from less-skilled attackers. More experienced actors may find a moral compass and take a break for the duration of the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus.
At least two ransomware actors stated that they would stop targeting health and medical organizations. Hospitals already have enough to deal with and any downtime they experience can cost human lives.
At the time of publishing, Lieferando website was up and running.
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