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PRAGUE, March 7 (Reuters) - The past week's sustaineddigital attack on the Czech Republic continued on Thursday asunknown hackers targeted the internet sites of mobile phoneoperators, slowing or shutting down the sites.
Hackers have been attacking Czech websites via the floodingtechnique, known as DDoS (distributed denial of service), sincethe beginning of the week. The attacks have included major newswebsites, search engines and the central bank.
The central European country's two leading mobile operators,Telefonica Czech Republic and T-Mobile, said on Thursday that their sites have been floodedby data requests, putting them out of service.
"We registered an attempt for a DDoS attack ... and we havecaught it in time," said Hany Farghali, a spokesman forTelefonica Czech Republic.
"However some customers can experience slow displaying ofour websites. We have taken preventative steps and are workingon complete renewal (of functionality)."
Farghali said the attacks against Telefonica came fromRussian IP addresses, which identify individual computers on theinternet.
IT experts say that this does not mean that any Russianentity is behind the attack. The attackers may be using networksof infected computers, called botnets, to send the digitalrequests. The owners of the IP addresses are usually unawarethat their computers are part of such a network.
Phone services were not affected by the latest attacks.Vodafone, the third Czech mobile phone provider, said itwas not being attacked.
The companies that have come under attack this week havesaid that attacks came from both domestic and foreign addresses.No group has claimed responsibility and police have beguninvestigations.
