Government websites targeted and shut down in cyber attack

Government departments and agencies were targeted by a cyber attack which shut down websites and has forced officials to review the protection of their internet systems.

The departments of finance, justice, and defence, the Central Statistics Office, and the Houses of the Oireachtas were among the state bodies which had their websites disrupted.

The websites were forced offline by what is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, where servers were flooded by masses of online traffic.