DDoS attack leaves DigiD site unreachable

The DigiD website was unavailable for a time on Wednesday due to a DDoS attack - the third attack on the site in a week's time. Allestoringen.nl received hundreds of reports from people who were unable to reach the government website, NU.nl reports.

As the DigiD site was unreachable, it was impossible to log into government websites, like the Tax Authority site, because these sites use DigiD as a login system.

This is the third time in a week DigiD is hit by a DDoS attack. Whether they are related is not yet clear. "Competent authorities" are investigating, a spokesperson for DigiD service provider Logius said to NU.nl. "We find it very annoying that there was another attack", the spokesperson said. "We are working on measures to prevent it from happening again. But we can not tell too much about that, because that will reveal our hand to the attackers."

In a DDoS attack, a website is bombarded with massive amounts of data. This overloads the site's server, and crashes the site.