Alcohol producers and distributors in Russia were prevented from shipping products to their customers after a large-scale failure of the State’s Automated Alcohol Accounting Information System (EGAIS) generated by what appears to be a denial of service (DoS) attack. The attack would have been confirmed on the Telegram channel operated by Disbalancer, a Pro-Ukrainian hacking group close to the newly created Ukrainian IT Army.
The attacks apparently began on May 2, with minor flaws escalating until the situation became untenable a few hours later. Because of these failures, factories stopped accepting tanks with alcohol, and customers, distributors, and stores were unable to receive finished products.
In this regard, the representative of an alliance of distributors and producers of alcohol mentioned that all kinds of procedures had been delayed due to the lack of availability of EGAIS servers, so many deliveries were delayed.
On the other hand, the owner of the EGAIS service mentions that this system is operating normally, although he recognizes a delay in some functions: “Several organizations could experience an increase in the waiting time for the responses of the EGAIS system due to the great load on the channels of the suppliers”, although he did not add which suppliers were being affected.
Despite the flaws in the system, retail stores have had no problem selling alcohol, so end consumers are not expected to have problems buying alcoholic beverages. Vadim Drobiz, director of the Federal and Regional Alcohol Markets Research Center (CIFRRA), mentions that retail chains have enough bottles in stock, so they will be able to meet demand while resolving flaws in the bureaucratic system.
To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a cyber security and malware researcher. He studied Computer Science and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2006. He is actively working as an cyber security investigator. He also worked for different security companies. His everyday job includes researching about new cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in enterprise security implementation.