Catalan authorities suffered a massive cyberattack while the region was voting in an independence ballot outlawed by Madrid, their leader said on Tuesday. On polling day Sunday, the regional government’s computer systems received 60,000 times more hits than usual in “hard, organised cybernetic attacks”, said its president Artur Mas. “They tried to take down the Catalan government’s computer systems.” He was speaking to reporters in his first public address since Sunday’s polls, in which 2.3 million people turned out to vote on whether the rich region should break away from Spain.
… Describing the cyberattack, Mas said that hits on his government’s computer systems multiplied 20,000 times on Saturday and 60,000 on Sunday.
“Never before had we suffered an organised attack of such scale and characteristics,” he said, adding that the assault had threatened to disrupt medical services.
“We suspect that it could not just be a few amateur hackers or Twitter users who organised such a thing,” he said. “We are examining another possibility.”
Full Article: Catalonia ‘suffered cyber attack in independence vote’ – International – World – Ahram Online.