A cyber attack on a major Maltese internet provider has led to an outage across several localities.

Melita users reported that their internet had dropped in the early afternoon on Wednesday due to a DDOS attack by “cybercriminals aiming to extort money from ISPs”.

“Melita’s internet services are being disrupted and Melita’s team is implementing mitigation measures to counter and resolve the threat as it evolves. No systems were penetrated or breached,” a Melita spokesperson told Lovin Malta.

“Cyberattacks of this nature are increasingly common and Melita invests substantially in cybersecurity to ensure service continuity and to protect customer information.”

A number of localities, as well as individual homes and businesses, reported the internet downtime around 1pm today. The attack was quickly addressed and mitigated “thanks to extensive cybersecurity measures”.

“Melita is reporting all threats and incidents to the relevant authorities,” they said.

This is not the first major Maltese company to suffer a serious cyber attack recently, with BOV having millions of euro stolen in a serious cyber attack last year.

Were you affected by the internet downtime? Let us know in the comments below