The websites of several Danish political parties were targeted on Monday in a cyberattack claimed by pro-Russian hackers on the eve of local and regional elections.
The Danish Agency for Social Security said it was “aware that certain political party websites were unavailable this morning due to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks,” adding that it was monitoring the situation along with military intelligence.
“DDoS attacks are part of the normal picture,” it said in a statement. “The actors behind these attacks carry out the overload attacks partly to harass and attract attention.”
The sites of the Conservatives and the Red-Green Alliance were briefly unavailable early Monday, an AFP journalist noted.
The Copenhagen Post, an English-language online newspaper covering Danish news, was also affected.
“We have been informed by the Danish Defence Intelligence Service that the likely cause is a DDoS attack, with our coverage of the November 18 local elections making us a target,” it wrote on Instagram.
DDoS attacks halt access to a website by overloading its servers with traffic.
Pro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16) said on social media it was targeting the websites of several Danish political parties and public broadcaster DR.
But DR told AFP: “No incidents have been registered that have affected DR’s ability to operate normally.”
Last week, NoName057(16) claimed responsibility for cyberattacks on several Danish municipalities, government websites and a defence company.
In a risk analysis ahead of the local elections, Denmark’s intelligence service said in early November there was a high likelihood of cyberattacks.
“It is likely that groups of pro-Russian hackers will carry out DDoS attacks against websites linked to the elections,” it said.
Add Comment