Pro-Russian hackers attack Belgian government websites
The pro-Russian hacker collective NoName057 has taken several Belgian government websites down today. Government portal MyGov.be, which gives citizens access to official documents, can currently not be reached. The Walloon Parliament's website was also offline for a while.
The Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium immediately responded to the threat this morning and alerted the necessary authorities. The attack was carried out by a known group of hackers who have targeted Belgium on several occasions. In October last year, the hackers attacked Belgian government websites for five days in a row. Back then, they mainly targeted the websites of small municipalities. Now, the hackers are focusing on larger targets.
Cyber security firm FalconFeeds.io pointed to MyGov.be, amongst others, but also to the website of the Walloon Parliament and several Brussels government sites. However, most of those sites appear to be functioning again. It is possible that the attack may flare up again during the day.
On the group's Telegram channel, the hackers declared that the attack was carried out because of a new aid package of 1 billion euros from Belgium for Ukraine. Belgian defence minister Theo Francken presented that package to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting in early March.
As on previous occasions, this is a relatively harmless DDoS attack. The servers are “bombarded” with requests, overloading them and making them inaccessible to real users. Hackers however cannot steal data that way.
Illustration © BELGA PHOTO AFP / THOMAS SAMSON
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