For the 5th consecutive day, the pro-Russian hackers group NoName057 has carried out cyber-attacks on several websites here in Belgium. These include the website of the Flemish Parliament and a number of media outlets. In a message posted on the Telegram messing platform NoName057 says “We continue to send DDoS greetings to Belgium”.
On Friday the hackers targeted websites including that of the Flemish Parliament, the authors, composers and publishers’ federation Sabam, the graphic industry federation Febelgra and Monato magazine. Several media outlets were also such as the press agency Belga and the ‘De Standaard’ and ‘Het Nieuwsblad’ newspapers were also targeted.
This is the 5th successive day on which NoName has carried out DDoS attacks against Belgian websites. Earlier this week numerous local authorities’ websites were targeted as were the sites of the port of Antwerp and banking industry federation Febelfin.
A DDoS attack is relatively harmless. During the attack servers are bombarded with requests, causing them to overload and making them inaccessible to those that wish to use them. However, no data is stolen during this kind of attack.
NoName has been carrying out attacks on websites in countries that support Ukraine allies since the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine more than two and a half years ago.
No threat to the elections
Flemish Interior Minister Hilde Crevits (Christian democrat) said earlier this week that the cyber-attacks pose no threat to this Sunday’s local elections. “The voting computers are in no way connected to the internet and therefore cannot be hacked”, Ms Crevits said.
Ms Crevits added that “We have taken several initiatives in the run-up to the elections to ensure the cyber security of the election software. We will also continue to monitor everything in the coming days and are in close contact with the Centre for Cybersecurity”.
The Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB) also said earlier that the attacks pose little danger. The federal public prosecutor's office did launch an investigation into the cyber attacks.