Avoid gatherings. A diktat that today also applies to the INPS website. After the disaster of April 1, the Institute runs for cover and decides to restrict access to INPS telematic services, establishing two different time slots:
- From 8 to 16, the services will be available for Patronages and authorized Intermediaries, who will be able to operate according to the usual access methods;
- From 16 to 8 the services will be available to citizens, who will be able to operate using the access credentials currently available.
This is what we read in the note from the Institute. After 24 nightmare hours due to the exceptional amount of accesses by citizens who intended to request the €600 bonus intended for VAT numbers and self-employed, the INPS website has started working again, albeit slowly.
What happened? Website down for the whole day and, even more serious, some users intent on submitting their request found themselves faced with the data of other citizens, in defiance of any privacy law. A problem due, according to what was declared by the president of INPS, Pasquale Tridico, a a hacker attack.
“In recent days, and also this morning, we have received violent hacker attacks – he said – This morning they added up to the many accesses, which reached 300 requests per second, and the site did not hold up. This is why we have now suspended the site,” explained Tridico.
In the middle of the day, the number of applications continued to grow, reaching 1,5 million compared to an estimated audience of 5 million workers.
An explanation that, however, does not convince those who usually deal with preventing these eventualities and protecting sites from possible intrusions. Most likely the problem occurred due to a short-sightedness configuration of the server resources from which the site should have provided its services. Undersized resources that therefore could not handle the foreseeable overload. In defense of INPS, however, it was not easy. But it had to be expected. The simultaneous and massive access of many users on the same site can in fact be assimilated to the activity of a hacker who sends a very high number of requests concentrating the traffic all on the same site generating what in technical jargon is called DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service).
In any case, the problem seems to have been at least partially resolved and with staggered accesses it is hoped to be able to withstand the shock wave of requests. Going to the INPS website, they now appear immediately three sections attributable to the three provisions of the Cura Italia decree for which you can apply: 600 euro allowance, baby sitting bonus and Covid-19 leave. Up to 16 it will be up to the labor consultants, who however mainly deal with the redundancy fund for companies. From 16 pm it will instead be the turn of ordinary citizens who will be able to access the services and submit a request for one of the measures launched by the Government. Hoping that from today, everything works properly.
