Cyber attack downs the police and tax administration websites
A Finnish newspaper remarked the attack started on Wednesday while Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting Finland.
The websites of several Finnish state organizations have been inaccessible for many hours due to denial-of-service (DoS) cyber attack, in which the perpetrators manage to disrupt the services of a host connected to the internet.
According to the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle), the attack already started on Wednesday evening and downed at least the websites of the Finnish Police, the Tax Administration (Vero) and the Population Register Center. Additionally, it caused disturbances at the websites of the Finnish Border Guard and the information platform Suomi.fi.
Most of the services affected were again operational on Monday by mid-day. However, some problems persisted, for example with logging in to online services at the website of the Finnish Social Security Institution (Kela).
The Police said an investigation has been launched to find out the cause and the origin of the attack.
The Finnish newspaper Iltalehti reported that the website of the Police went down on Wednesday evening while the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, was visiting Helsinki, but said "there is no information yet if the disturbance is associated with Putin's visit".