A series of websites of Italian companies and institutions are under hacker attack by the pro-Russian collective NoName057, which claimed responsibility for the action on its Telegram profiles. The attack, of the DDoS type, started yesterday on the occasion of the visit of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to Kiev. "Italy will provide Ukraine with the sixth package of military assistance," they write on its channels, quoting the Prime Minister's press conference, adding: "We will continue our fascinating journey through Russophobic Italy."
The attack concerns several sites: the collective cites that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Interior, the Carabinieri, the Bper bank, the A2A group and the Ministry of Defense (the latter would have been attacked yesterday). Italian investigative sources confirm the cyber-action even if, they underline at the same time, the defense systems of companies and institutions have managed to mitigate the consequences; to the point that most portals are still reachable. Among the domains targeted there would also be those of the portal for identity cards, that of the Ministry of Agriculture and that of the Tim group.
"We are analyzing the attack, we are following the events" indicate sources of the National Cybersecurity Agency, which explains: "It is from this morning that the Agency has dealt with what was happening. Many services were promptly restored. An alert was given" and the security system "on the whole reacted very well". From a technical point of view, this was a direct attack on applications, therefore more complex.
This is yet another operation conducted by pro-Russian groups against companies and organizations in countries that express support for Ukraine. The modus operandi is the same: these formations use Telegram groups for real calls to arms: this is the opinion of Pierluigi Paganini, cybersecurity expert, on the attacks of yesterday and today.
"Typically, lists of sites to be hit with DDoS attacks are shared which, by saturating their resources, make them unreachable," explains Paganini. "These are simple attacks, but the availability of botnets composed of a large number of compromised systems makes these offensives difficult to contain without the necessary countermeasures. These attacks demonstrate the impact of 'Non state actor' in the current conflict. They are criminal groups and activists who in various capacities operate in support of Moscow. In some cases, links with Russian military intelligence have been demonstrated," concludes the expert.