OPro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16) has claimed to have carried out a DDoS attack against NotuBiz, a company that offers IT solutions to municipalities and other political institutions. As a result, pages containing important documents were temporarily unavailable.
Because of the NATO Summit that’s currently taking place, The Hague is probably the most protected city in the world. Over 27,000 police officers have been deployed to secure the event, and strict rules have been imposed for both inhabitants and visitors. Around 9,000 people will attend the Summit, including the heads of government from 45 countries, 6,000 diplomats, and over 2,000 journalists.
So far, NATO allies have reached a deal on setting a new defense spending target of 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), which was originally demanded by United States President Donald Trump. 3.5 percent will go directly to the Department of Defense, the remaining 1.5 percent is allocated to broader investment in relevant areas such as cybersecurity and infrastructure.
The NATO Summit offers the perfect opportunity for hackers to carry out cyberattacks. And that’s exactly what NoName057(16) did, a group of hacktivist cybersecurity experts believed to be sponsored by Russia. The group has a history of attacking countries and organizations with an anti-Russian stance, including Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and Ukraine.
In a message on Telegram, NoName057(16) claims to have targeted the NATO Regional Representation in the Netherlands, and several municipalities and provinces, including Den Bosch, Delft, and The Hague.
On Monday, The Hague reported that several suppliers were noticing large amounts of network traffic towards their systems. “As a result, various domains, which the municipality of The Hague also uses, were sometimes limited or inaccessible,” a spokesperson confirmed.
NotuBiz, the provider of IT services, acknowledged huge amounts of network traffic to its systems. The company’s firewalls were effective in fencing off redundant traffic. Because of this, it took a long time for visitors to load a page containing official documents.
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