Killnet: Russian hacker group with attacks against targets in the West

The pro-Russian hacker group Killnet is increasingly attacking targets in the West. With several DDoS attacks, they first attacked the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), German government websites and now also the websites of Italian authorities.

Killnet targets West

Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, German authorities have warned of increased cyberattacks from Russia. Most recently, they also questioned whether they could still trust Kaspersky security software, which originated in Russia.

The pro-Russian hacker group Killnet already attacked the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) via DDoS attack in the recent past. According to the Italian police, the collective tried to paralyze the systems during the final. The websites of German authorities have also had to defend themselves against increased attacks recently.

Here, however, the attacks were apparently repelled in good time. Unlike in Italy, which has been the focus of the hacker organization in recent days.

Attack on Italian authorities

Now the websites of various Italian authorities were attacked and paralyzed, as reported by dpa. The website of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was unavailable last Friday morning, as confirmed by a spokeswoman for the Italian State Police. The website of the “Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura” – the Supreme Council for the Judiciary – and that of the Ministry of Culture were also affected.

A special cybercrime unit, the Polizia Postale e delle Comunicazioni, has already been assigned to the case, the report continues. It is currently unclear how many websites were specifically affected by the hacker attack.