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The European Parliament’s official website was taken down for hours on Wednesday, November 23, by a DDoS attack. The attack was claimed by Anonymous Russia, part of the pro-Russian hacktivist group, Killnet.
Details About the Attack
The DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack was confirmed by the European Parliament President, Roberta Metsola, who said: “IT experts are pushing back against it & protecting our systems.”
The @Europarl_EN is under a sophisticated cyberattack. A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility.
Our IT experts are pushing back against it & protecting our systems.
This, after we proclaimed Russia as a State-sponsor of terrorism.
My response: #SlavaUkraini
— Roberta Metsola (@EP_President) November 23, 2022
This type of cyberattack works by directing high volumes of internet traffic toward targeted servers, trying to knock them down.
The attacks came after the lawmakers in the EU Parliament voted to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism and decided on further international sanctions. All these are in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
MEPs also want diplomatic ties with Russia to be reduced, EU contacts with official Russian representatives to be kept to the absolute minimum and Russian state-affiliated institutions in the EU spreading propaganda around the world to be closed and banned.
More Attacks by Pro-Russian Hackers
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, multiple pro-Kremlin hacktivist groups attacked European and U.S. websites.
Last month, a DDoS attack targeted the websites of several important airports in the U.S. The incident was claimed by Killnet and took down the sites of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).
Previous to that, several U.S. government websites were under attack in Colorado, Kentucky, and Mississippi. But the cybercriminals were not that successful, taking offline a few of them for a short while.
Killnet also claimed to have taken down CISA’s Protected Critical Infrastructure Information Management System website after its attacks on the U.S. Treasury in early October were thwarted before having a real effect on the agency’s infrastructure.
Other predilect targets for pro-Russian hacktivists are the countries that side with Ukraine like Romania, Italy, Norway, and Lithuania.
These attacks have a minor impact on their victims because they target public-facing infrastructure such as websites rather than actual services.
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