For the third day in a row, Monobank has faced a large-scale DDOS attack that began on the evening of August 16. This cyberattack became one of the most serious in the bank's history and even shocked Amazon Web Services (AWS) specialists, who were brought in to solve the problem.
The co-founder of Monobank, Oleg Horohovskyi, reported in his Telegram channel that the bank received support from the Ukrainian special services. "Our special services offered us help. The situation is under control, but the scale is impressive," said Horokhovsky's message.
The attack, which began on the evening of August 16, initially appeared to be a routine incident. However, within three hours the service received about a billion requests. Bank employees, despite the seriousness of the situation, kept calm and even joked that they were "repelling the attack while drinking coffee and donuts." However, the situation became significantly more complicated the next day.
On August 17, the second day of the attack, the number of requests for the Monobank service increased to 3 billion. The DDOS attack did not actually stop, except for a short pause from 22:30 on August 16 to 03:15 on August 17. The "Banks" service, which is used to accumulate funds, in particular for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, also came under attack.
As of today, August 18, the attack on Monobank continues with even greater intensity. The total number of service requests exceeded 5.5 billion, which makes this attack one of the largest in the history of the Ukrainian banking sector. Oleg Horohovskyi confirmed that not only AWS specialists, but also Ukrainian special services joined the protection of the system.
"The situation is under control, but the scale is impressive," Horokhovsky said. He also urged Monobank users to continue to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine despite the difficulties caused by the attack. "We hold on so that you can help us and close the meetings. Go and attack the Armed Forces, to the evil of this unclean thing," he added.