Pro-Russian hackers target European elections with widespread DDoS attacks

The Russia-aligned cyber threat actor often called NoName057 (16) has reportedly introduced that it’s launching large-scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults concentrating on web infrastructure all through Europe.

The group is infamous for orchestrating Venture DDoSia, a marketing campaign that conducts large DDoS assaults in opposition to entities supportive of Ukraine, primarily concentrating on NATO nations.

Why are hacker teams concentrating on European elections with DDoS assaults?

Through the present European election season, the hackers declared their intention to disrupt these occasions with DDoS assaults. The election interval started on June 6, within the Netherlands, whereas Estonia began its voting course of on June 3. Each Czechia and Eire are casting their votes on Friday (June 7), with different EU member states scheduled to vote over the upcoming weekend.

Based on cyber safety information web site DailyDarkWeb, the group criticized the European Parliament as a “pseudo-democratic and totally Russophobic physique.” NoName057(16) accused the European Parliament of implementing “meaningless anti-Russian sanctions” following Russia’s actions in Crimea in 2014 and Donbas in 2022. In response to what they understand as “Russophobia” and the double requirements of European authorities, the group introduced that Europe’s web infrastructure could be focused by Russian hackers.

It said on the social media web site Telegram: “When Russia started defending the peaceable inhabitants of Crimea in 2014 and the residents of Donbas in 2022, the EP [European Parliament], like a rabid printer, began issuing meaningless anti-Russian sanctions in bulk.

“For the Russophobia and double requirements of European authorities, Europe’s web infrastructure will endure from Russian hackers.”

NoName057(16) claims that it has recruited a number of different malicious hacking teams to its trigger, reminiscent of 22C, IAMKILLMILK, CoupTeam, Cyberdragon, Folks’s CyberArmy, Root@kali, and Usersec. That is along with different individuals who want to stay nameless.

Dutch social gathering web sites attacked

In a blog post, Cloudflare’s João Tomé mentioned that the agency had already noticed “vital” DDoS assaults concentrating on a number of election or politically-related Web properties within the Netherlands. He added: “On June 5 and 6, 2024, Cloudflare methods robotically detected and mitigated DDoS assaults that focused at the very least three politically-related Dutch web sites.” On June 5, Cloudflare mentioned it had mitigated one billion HTTP requests from day by day DDoS assaults within the Netherlands.

The first DDoS assault on June 5 focused a particular web site, peaking at 14:13 UTC (16:13 native time) with a charge of 73,000 requests per second. This assault persevered for a number of hours.

The safety agency attributes these assaults to the pro-Russian hacker group HackNeT, which has claimed duty. Writing on Telegram, a bunch purporting to be HackNeT, said: “The Netherlands is the primary nation to vote for a brand new European Parliament.

“So that they’ll be the primary to endure from DDoS assaults.”

The middle-right Christian Democratic Attraction (CDA), Geert Wilders’ far-right Social gathering for Freedom (PVV), and the populist, far-right Discussion board for Democracy (FvD) all encountered points with their web sites.

Vanochtend was de CDA-website door een zware DDOS-aanval tijdelijk minder bereikbaar.

Op verkiezingsdag beschouwen we dit als een aanval op vrije, democratische verkiezingen. We maken melding bij de relevante instanties. Onze web site is inmiddels weer bereikbaar. #VerkiezingenEU

— CDA (@cdavandaag) June 6, 2024

The CDA introduced on X that its web site was subjected to a “heavy” distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assault. “On election day, we think about this to be an assault on free, democratic elections,” it mentioned.

Different European nations in firing line

In the meantime, one other safety analyst underneath the username CyberKnow said that the group Cyber Military Russia Reborn additionally launched DDoS assaults concentrating on Eire.

Cyber Military Russia Reborn as a part of the DDoS assaults in opposition to the European elections has focused Eire. In what be one of many first pro-Russian hacktivist assaults on Eire since 2022#cybersecurity #infosec #Europe pic.twitter.com/ah5b6VivfP

— CyberKnow (@Cyberknow20) June 7, 2024

#Spain 🇪🇸 – NoName057(16) allegedly carried out a #DDoS assault on Santa Bárbara Sistemas, a Spanish protection contractor primarily based in Madrid.#DarkWeb #cyberattack pic.twitter.com/KuZfPYFcQR

— Darkish Net Intelligence (@DailyDarkWeb) June 6, 2024

DailyDarkWeb additionally reported that NoName057(16) allegedly carried out a DDoS assault on Santa Bárbara Sistemas, a Spanish protection contractor primarily based in Madrid.

Featured picture: Ideogram