The denial of service attack troubled the bank’s retail customers by disabling access to online and mobile banking for several hours. It is an attempt to make the system unavailable to its intended users by overloading it with web traffic.
The attack comes on the heels of a systems failure that left the bank’s customers without access to digital services, according to media sources.
It happened on the final Friday of January which is an important payday for many workers and two days ahead of a key deadline for paying tax.
HSBC said that it defended its system from a potential data breach and the customer transactions remain safe.
HSBC spokesman was quoted by BBC as saying: "HSBC internet banking came under a denial of service attack this morning, which affected personal banking websites in the UK.
"HSBC has successfully defended against the attack, and customer transactions were not affected. We are working hard to restore services, and normal service is now being resumed. We apologise for any inconvenience this incident may have caused."
The European Parliament recently adopted the revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2) proposed by the European Commission for enhanced consumer protection and improved security of electronic payment services.
The PSD2 introduces stringent security requirements for the initiation and processing of electronic payments and the protection of consumers’ financial data.
Image: HSBC online banking services have been hit by cyber attack. Photo: courtesy of Naypong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
