Trace to Russia

Italy reports hacker attacks on ministries

The hackers cited Italy's aid to Ukraine as the reason for the attacks.

(Bild: Family Veldman stock.adobe)

The pro-Russian hacker group Noname057(16) launched a large-scale attack on the websites of Italian ministries and institutions on Saturday. These are so-called DDos actions, which cause temporary service interruptions.

The websites attacked include those of the foreign and transport ministries, the stock exchange supervisory authority Consob, the Carabinieri, the navy, the air force and the public transport companies of the cities of Rome, Palermo and Genoa. Some websites reported disruptions lasting around an hour, but these were not particularly critical.

IT experts mitigated the effects of the offensive
In order to mitigate the effects of the attack, the IT managers of the affected institutions used various techniques, above all geofencing, which blocks access requests, for example from Russia. The methods used to protect the websites also include redirecting data traffic.

Ukraine aid as a motive
When announcing their attack on the websites of Italian ministries, the cyber criminals criticized Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Telegram. "Meloni confirmed Italy's continued full support for Ukraine at a meeting with (Ukrainian President) Volodymyr Zelenskyi during his visit to Rome on Thursday. According to Meloni, Italy will help Ukraine defend its interests and achieve a just and lasting peace. Italy should start by helping itself and, above all, its cyber security," he said.

Recently, repeated cases of hacker attacks on important databases have been reported in Italy. At the end of December, an attack was carried out on the IT systems of Milan's Linate and Malpensa airports. The website on which take-offs and landings can be tracked was no longer available, but flight operations continued as normal. Italy wants to crack down on cybercrime. The powers of the national authority to combat cybercrime are to be tightened.