Several banks around the world are working hard to bring mobile and online experiences to their customers. However, not every bank is overly successful in their efforts. HSBC bank has been making headlines several times in recent months for online and mobile banking outages. This time, they claim a denial of service attack is preventing customers from logging in. The Bitcoin network, on the other hand, has never suffered from these issues.
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HSBC Customers Affected by DDoS Attack on Central Servers
Whether or not the HSBC services are suffering from a DDoS attack is difficult to prove, but it would not be the first time a major bank has come under such attack. While HSBC claimed they successfully thwarted the denial of service, banking customers have been unable to access both online and mobile banking throughout most of yesterday and even today.
Needless to say, leaving customers without a convenient method to access their bank account is not bringing positive publicity for HSBC. While customers could still visit a branch office and check their account balance via an ATM, completing transactions is a whole different matter.
For the time being, HSBC customers are still experiencing issues when logging in through mobile and online banking platforms. As a countermeasure, the bank announced on Twitter how all of their UK branches would be open on Saturday, to accommodate for any questions or issues affected customers might have.
Earlier this month, HSBC faced another multi-day outage for both mobile and online banking services, although this event had nothing to do with a denial of service or other cyber attack. A few days ago, the UK parliament criticized major banks in the region for their string of IT outages, and firmly advised them to “step up their game”.
Some security experts are worried this denial of service attack could have been a diversion. The director of Arbor stated how HSBC IT personnel will have to perform thorough checks of the entire infrastructure, ensuring this was just a DDoS attack and not an attempt to divert attention for installing backdoors or malware on the system.
Bitcoin Network Is Always Accessible
Unlike regular financial services, the Bitcoin network has never suffered from any downtime whatsoever. This alternative form finance has been accessible to users from all over the world at any given time. All of this is achieved by decentralizing the Bitcoin protocol, as it is supported by companies and consumers across all continents.
Major banks would do well to decentralize their servers as well, rather than storing them in one location. By centralizing the machines offering mobile and online banking services, a central point of failure is created. Such central points are opportune targets for assailants. Bitcoin does not have a central point of failure, which is why the network can not be shut down.
Source: Finextra
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