Law enforcement agencies said on Friday that pro-Russian hackers had targeted the websites of various Italian organizations and government ministries.
The attack, which began on Thursday evening and is still ongoing until Friday morning, has been confirmed by Italian Postal Police.
The hacker group “Killnet” launched the attack around 20:00 GMT on Thursday, the Italian cyber-security group Yarix said in a statement.
Among the approximately 50 organizations are the Italian Supreme Judicial Council, its customs body and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Education and Cultural Heritage.
On Friday, just before 12 noon GMT, the Italian embassy in London tweeted that the websites of the country’s foreign ministry and all its embassies had been hit and were currently inoperable:
Cyber attacks – Difficulties for users. The site of the State Department and the consular application of this office came under cyber attack. We apologize to the users for the inconvenience and delay in processing the files pic.twitter.com/4eohBWMy0U
– Italy in London (tItalyinLDN) May 20, 2022
The State Department’s website and consular applications in this location were damaged in the cyber attack, the tweet said.
“We apologize to users for the inconvenience and delay in processing this document.”
Kilnett also targeted the upper house of the Italian parliament, the National Institutes of Health (ISS), and the automobile club D’Italia in early May.
In April, cyber security agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand issued warnings to organizations outside Ukraine’s borders that they could soon be targeted by pro-Russian hackers.
The so-called “Five Ice” intelligence group released its most detailed threat assessment on April 21, which included information on Kremlin-backed units and cybercrime groups that have pledged to support Russia.
The report claims that cybercrime groups that could threaten Western critical infrastructure (CNI) entities include data leakers The CoomingProject, DDoS-ers Killnet, Emotet operator Mummy and Sality botnet developer Salty Spider.
