French government cyber crisis teams ‘useless’ against DDoS

Several French government websites and networks have been crippled by an intense and ongoing series of cyberattacks over the past day, with pro-Russian hacker group Anonymous Sudan mocking the government's cyber defense capabilities as "useless" against the onslaught.

The French prime minister's office confirmed the disruptive attacks on Monday, stating that "since [Sunday], several government departments have been the subject of cyberattacks whose technical methods are...

12 March 2024 | Security

Ukrainians grapple with telecoms outages following cyberattack

Ukrainian civilians grappled with a second day of extensive cellular phone and internet outages following a devastating cyberattack on Tuesday.

The attack – orchestrated by Kremlin-backed hackers – targeted Kyivstar, the country's largest mobile phone and Internet provider, affecting 24.3 million mobile subscribers and over 1.1 million home Internet users.

Two hacking groups, Killnet and Solntsepek – both linked to the Russian government – claimed responsibility...

14 December 2023 | Networks

Russian hackers suspected of cyberattack exposing data of 40M citizens

A cyberattack targeting the UK Electoral Commission has exposed the data of up to 40 million citizens. British intelligence services have uncovered evidence linking the cyberattack to Russian hackers.

The attack, described as a "complex cyber attack," targeted the Electoral Commission's computer systems, gaining unauthorised access to sensitive information. The breach was not detected until 14 months after the initial intrusion, prompting questions about the organisation's...

9 August 2023 | Security

Risk Register 2023: Infrastructure cyberattack could harm thousands

In a stark warning, the UK government has alerted the public to the impact of a cyberattack on critical infrastructure.

The findings come from the latest National Risk Register report, which is based on the government’s classified National Security Risk Assessment and considers malicious risks like terrorism and cyberattacks alongside non-malicious risks such as severe weather incidents.

The government estimates there’s a 5-25 percent likelihood of a serious...

4 August 2023 | Security

Hackers force Russian military satellite operator offline

A group of unidentified hackers has taken credit for targeting prominent Russian satellite communications operator Dozor-Teleport.

The network disruption caused by the cyberattack impacted critical services utilised by energy companies, as well as the country's defense and security services.

The attack was perpetrated by an organisation claiming to be affiliated with the Wagner Group, a group of mercenaries financed by the Russian military that staged a coup last month...

3 July 2023 | Networks

Ukraine signs NATO cybersecurity centre accession

Ukraine has formally signed its accession to the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE).

The country applied for CCDCOE membership in August 2021. On 4 March 2022, existing CCDCOE members voted unanimously to accept Ukraine into the organisation.

“We have been actively cooperating with the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence for the last year,” said Yurii Shchyhol, Head of the State Special Communications Service of...

24 January 2023 | Legislation & Government

Pro-Kremlin hackers attack EU Parliament website

Pro-Kremlin hacking group KILLNET has launched a “sophisticated” cyberattack on the EU Parliament website.

The attack was launched after the Parliament designated Russia a state sponsor of terrorism:

https://twitter.com/EP_President/status/1595443471518777345

Users were unable to access the Parliament’s website for a few hours and some parts were rendered inoperable. As of writing, access has been restored.

In a Telegram post, KILLNET claimed...

24 November 2022 | Security

Akamai halts a record-breaking DDoS in Europe

Akamai says that it halted what would have been a record-breaking distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in Europe.

Another month comes another report of a would-be record DDoS. Last month, Cloudflare detailed a record-breaking DDoS attack that it thwarted in June. This time, it’s the turn of Akamai.

According to Akamai, an undisclosed company was hit by sustained traffic over a 30-day period. That traffic peaked on 21st July when the company was hit with 659.6...

1 August 2022 | Networks

DDoS attacks ‘became larger and more complex’ in 2021

Data collected by F5 suggests that Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks became “larger and more complex” last year.

While the prevalence of DDoS attacks decreased slightly over the previous year, the severity of each occurrence “ramped up markedly” in 2021.

By Q4 2021, the mean DDoS attack was in excess of 21Gbps. That’s more than four times larger than the beginning of 2020.

Not only did last year result in a larger overall mean attack size;...

24 March 2022 | Networks

US warns a Russian cyberattack could trigger a NATO response

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has warned that a Russian cyberattack on a NATO ally could trigger a collective response.

"We could see circumstances in which a collective response by the alliance to a cyberattack would be called by an ally," said Sullivan. "That is absolutely something where we and other countries could bring capabilities to help a country defend itself and respond."

Sullivan made the warning a day after President Biden said that...

23 March 2022 | Legislation & Government