Italy prevents pro-Russian hacker Eurovision attack

Kalush Orchestra

Rueters reports that Italian police thwarted hacker attacks by pro-Russian groups during the May 10 semi-final and Saturday final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin.

Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra won the contest with their entry “Stefania”, riding a wave of public support to claim an emotional victory that was welcomed by the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Killnet

During voting and the performances, the police cybersecurity department blocked several cyber attacks on network infrastructure by the “Killnet” hacker group and its affiliate “Legion”, police said.

The police also gathered information from the pro-Russian group’s Telegram channels to prevent other critical events and identified the attacks’ geographic location.

On May 11, “Killnet” claimed an attack on the websites of several Italian institutions, including the Senate, Italy’s upper house of parliament, and the National Health Institute (ISS), ANSA news agency reported.

The pro-Kremlin cybercriminal group boasts of conducting “military cyber exercises” to improve member skills, appears to be mostly involved in reasonably straightforward, if disruptive, Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.

Russia routinely denies it carries out offensive cyber operations.

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