
Rafay Baloch (REDSECLABS): Strategies to Counter DDoS and Cyber Threats in Luxembourg’s Financial Sector
Rafay Baloch, an ethical hacker, discusses the recent DDoS attack on Luxembourg’s infrastructure, its impact on financial services, and strategies to counter future threats.
What is a DDoS attack?
A DDOS Attack is aimed at compromising the availability of system by flooding the target server/network with excessive traffic, hence preventing legitimate users from accessing it. In this case, It seems that, Threat actors strategically targeted CTIE’s infrastructure, which hosts essential government service. This led to disruption of MyGuichet disrupting LuxTrust and indirectly affected LuxTrust services. Since, many financial institutions and service providers in Luxembourg rely on LuxTrust to ensure Authentication and transaction authorization, they experienced disruption as well.
How can Luxembourg and financial professionals improve their resistance against them?
The recent DDOS attack raises several questions about resilience of the critical infrastructure. To start with, an Anti-DDOS Mitigation should be deployed at key points such as LuxTrust and CTIE, ensuring that even if attacked, services remain online. Alternatively, Financial institutions can implement multi-authentication providers to reduce reliance on a single system like LuxTrust. Furthermore, CTIE could establish redundant infrastructure hosted in multiple geographic regions to maintain availability during an attack.

©DR
“"The recent DDOS attack raises several questions about resilience of the critical infrastructure.”
Which other cyberthreats do you identify for a Finance Center like the Grand Duchy?
Key threats include ransomware attacks targeting financially institutions with potential to disrupt critical operations. They can come through Supply chain compromises, where-by they can infiltrate through IT/audit firms and suppliers. Similarly, Phishing schemes aimed at high-net-worth clients or executives pose another risk. To combat this, a multi-layered approach is required, such as conducting continuous Penetration Testing engagements and requiring vendor to comply certain security baseline standard prior to integrating.