Finland's National Bureau of Investigation has opened a preliminary probe on a series of cyber attacks on the country's financial sector.
Finnish banks have been targeted in cyber attacks in recent months. In particular, Nordea Bank has been hit by several distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks throughout the autumn.
The bank has faced recurring problems with its services, attributing them to DDoS attacks and technical upgrades.
DDoS attacks involve a website being intentionally flooded with traffic or prompted to send information that causes it to crash.
The NBI is investigating the case as aggravated interference of telecommunications.
The law enforcement agency said it opened the investigation on its own initiative, according to a press release on the matter.
The release said the NBI has discussed the matter with the prosecutor, due to the nature of the suspected crime.
The case's lead investigator, Detective Inspector Markus Saario, said that police would not comment further about the probe, the parties involved, possible suspects, nor the investigation's timetable.
Preliminary probes of this nature generally involve cooperation with various authorities in Finland and abroad, the NBI said.
FIN-FSA probe
Earlier this month, the Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) called for an investigation into Nordea's issues.
On Friday, FIN-FSA reported to the Parliamentary Supervisory Council on banking about the matter.
The council's chair, Antti Lindtman (SDP) characterised the scope, intensity and duration of the cyber attacks on Nordea as unprecedented.
He said the authority's report made it clear that the perpetrator of the attacks was organised and was very well resourced.
While a number of other banks have been hit by cyber attacks recently, Nordea was hit the most. However, FIN-FSA did not report any data security shortcomings at Nordea, according to Lindtman.
Lindtman said that in his opinion, the attacker specifically targeted Nordea.
He said that given the scope and intensity of the attacks, it "would not be possible to carry out something like this with very limited resources."
He said those with the capability to operate on such a large scale include state governments.
