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Updated at 12.27pm
A NUMBER OF government websites were forced offline because of a large-scale cyberattack
Services like the Central Statistics Office, the Oireachtas, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defence, and the Courts Services of Ireland were unavailable because of a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack (DDoS). The attack began last night but was resolved this afternoon
No individual or group has taken responsibility for the attack as of yet.
It’s believed that the attacks are being carried out at a large scale on government infrastructure and that those issuing the attacks have changed targets to continue disruption.
The Office of Public Expenditure and Reform issued a statement on the attack saying that “a number of DDoS attacks are currently targeting Government Infrastructure,” and have resulted in “periodic disruption” for a number of its services.
These attacks have resulted in periodic disruption that has resulted in a number of Government websites becoming unavailable to the public. We have implemented our contingency plans which are designed to minimise this disruption. As with all DDoS attacks it is not possible to identify the exact source of the attack.
DDoS attacks which overwhelms services with fake traffic from multiple sources. Such attacks cause online services to slow down or experience downtime as it tries to cope with the large influx of traffic.
The government’s sites were one of a number of Irish sites which suffered from a DDoS attack. Earlier this week, the National Lottery experienced a two hour outage because of a similar attack while Boards.ie experienced a similar issue.
Originally published: 11.00am
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I wonder if anybody has actually studied which countries actually pose or have posed the most serious threat to the US.
I won’t even ask if they know which countries actually carried out the largest terrorist attacks against the US and if they are on the list.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. But Trump has businesses in those countries. He has no businesses in the countries he proposes to ban.
Even though they harbour and support terrorists?
Saudi Arabia -
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/18/what-we-know-about-saudi-arabias-role-in-911/amp/
The US have oil interests in Saudi, so unsurprisingly, not listed.
While undoubtedly a megalomaniac, the US defence contacts outweigh his personal interests, which is why these countries are off the list. His own families legacy and financial security is already set, and now that he has seen how he can raise military spending by tens of billions, he’ll start to grasping that power… even if it means Ivanka’s clothes don’t sell, her husband will still be at the heart of these new military contacts.
The seven countries on the list were identified by the Obama administration as the most likely sources of future terrorist attacks on US soil.
@Jason Culligan:
Great idea to forget the past and the schools and those that are financing them, that are bringing up new generations of terrorists and extremists.
Jason: How can they think pakistan poses no threat when they are using drones to kill terrorists in pakistan as we speak?
And an aggressive ban such as this will only serve to cause more terrorists to radicalise.
This ban is only to appease Trumps xenophobic followers, and won’t prevent any terrorism
@Jason Culligan: Lets talk about Iran ? What changes to the current visa programme will make America safer ? Thanks.
PS.Have the Homeland Security come out with a statement regards an imminent threat from these 7 countries ?
@Dave Harris What a lazy comparision to make : Well if the ban “serve to cause more terrorists to radicalise” Good . More drones to take them out then . So they must have been on the edge anyway
@Brian Lilly: There is some sort of policing in these countries, some control at least.
Any comment on the fact that Israeli Jews are banned from entering any of the countries on Trump’s proposed travel ban, and in most of these countries an Irish citizen would be banned from entering if they so much as have an Israeli exit / entry stamp on their Irish passport ? This has been the case for years and we’ve all been extremely quiet about it..
Well two wrongs do make a right I suppose.
@Karen Wellington: For the record Karen I don’t agree with any travel ban that is based on nationality or race – the concept of singling out people based on the colour of their passport is disgusting to me. However, I do recognise the hypocrisy in social media commentary in this country, where being anti-Israeli seems to be acceptable but being anti Iranian is horribly racist..
Countries can decide who comes in, or not – for any reason.
How is it wrong to impose restrictions on visas from countries you’re not friendly with. Israel have been known to assassinate individuals in other countries. They done so not too long ago using fake Irish passports. While you won’t stop that it seems silly to just let them wonder in.
Maybe because israel is doing pretty evil shit
@Awkward Seal: For the same reason that the UK didn’t impose a blanket ban on Irish citizens entering their country during the ’60s, ’70s & ’80s – they knew that we weren’t all intent on bombing their pubs and that most of us are law abiding and sensible people, so they allowed entry but carried out security checks. Blanket bans based on nationality is racist, uncivilised and downright unfair.
Unfair, maybe – but security and safety are more information than fairness. Every state has the right to dictate who visits, or doesn’t – do you actually think otherwise?
@willypearson: I agree, as are Syria, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Sudan, Somalia – and don’t forget UK, Russia, Japan, Australia, France, USA, Korea, China… My point is that the Irish seem to be blinkered and single out Jewish Israel over all others.
Every country develops such policies based on the standards of the country. In the US this ban had previously been argued against as unconstitutional. If you have a constitution you pass laws that are not in conflict with it.
A blanket ban on a nation isn’t racist as it doesn’t specifically target race. If the UK were to impose a blanket ban on Irish travelling to the UK they would have been justified as it would have cut down on the number of terrorists attacks. However there is a cost-benefit analysis to such a move that would make it not worth it in most cases. If it’s unfair so what. No country is obliged to be fair to the citizens of other countries. If they don’t want to be discriminated against because of the passport they hold they should try to reform their counties so that the state doesn’t sponsor terrorism. Civilisation is based on rules. Every country in the world limits the number of people that are allowed to enter and citizens of different countries are treated differently. Some can enter for as long as they wish, some may only apply for certain visas and stay a limited amount of time and the number of visas allocated to different countries varies too. So basically every country in the world is unfairly discriminating based on nationality. So your whole argument is nonsense unless you’re advocating for open borders worldwide.
This is for s h i t s ville but seems to have posted to the wrong place
Trump is right.
@John Henry: Trump is infallible and all seeing. Trump is God. Bow down and worship our great leader. Let him rule the planet and the skies. His wisdom is infinite.
@Tony Daly: Hes not that great Tony but we get your point. Long live King Trump!
There’s a lot more scrutiny of major decisions – in the US – than here…
@Fank Pulman: you raise a very interesting but provocative point.
Politicians around the world are loving this Trump circus – all sorts of crafty shenanigans can be done under the distractions
It sounds like they have no legal leg to stand on. If Trump said the sky was blue there’d be protests on the street calling him racist against the sky.
Except that trumps is more likely to say that the sky is green.
The usual Democrat state’s running in to court going nowhere on this occasion
Trump is such a unifying President. He is coherent the US nation. He should be made honorary Chairman of FG.
Your second sentence is gibberish, and your point is childish…
@Fank Pulman: cohering the US nation.
Just being facetious.
Trump brings out that unworthy quality in me but fair criticism which I accept.
@Jason Culligan: Red herring
have your say