The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) recently announced that its online platform for reserving foreign currency was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattack. This incident, which occurred on a Monday, severely hampered user access to the system, disrupting financial transactions and operations. The attack was part of a targeted effort to cripple the bank’s digital services, which are crucial for currency reservation among individuals.
In response to the attack, the Central Bank of Libya’s IT team took swift action on the same evening to mitigate the damage. They successfully thwarted the cyberattack by blocking all network access to the system from IP addresses registered outside of Libya. This decisive action helped to quickly restore the system’s functionality, enabling the continuation of currency reservation services without further interruptions.
By Wednesday, the CBL confirmed that the platform had returned to normal operation, highlighting the effectiveness of their response measures. Despite Monday’s disruptions, the platform managed to complete over 17,900 reservations, amounting to a total value of approximately 68 million US dollars. This was followed by another 17,200 reservations on Tuesday, totaling around 65 million US dollars, underscoring the robust demand and utilization of the platform even in the aftermath of the cyberattack.
In addition to the attack on the currency reservation platform, the Central Bank of Libya’s official website also suffered a DDoS attack on Wednesday. The bank responded promptly to this second attack, implementing measures to fortify their systems against future cyber threats. These incidents underline the ongoing cybersecurity challenges faced by financial institutions globally, emphasizing the need for continual vigilance and investment in cybersecurity defenses to protect critical financial infrastructures.
