The offensive was claimed by “No name” and calls into question the premier’s visit to Kiev. The group on Telegram: “Russophobic Italy hit”
A group of Russian hackers have claimed responsibility for a massive cyber attack on Italy. About ten attacks on as many sites of Italian institutions and companies. The group, known as NoName 057(16), said it began the offensive in response to Giorgia Meloni’s visit to Ukraine. Among the sites attacked there would be that of the Carabinieri, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Defense but also those of companies such as Tim, the Bper bank and the utility company A2a. From what has been verified in these hours, the institutional sites sometimes have access problems. While no problem has been highlighted so far on the company sites.
Behind No Name, from what we learn, there would be a collective of hackers close to the Russian foreign secret services, the International Intelligence Service. Their attacks, explained a Google Mandiant report, are quite sophisticated and difficult to predict. An attack that, it is explained, was more complicated to manage than those launched so far in Italy by cybercriminals. A new level of danger reached as a reaction to the Italian government’s support for the Ukrainian cause. The National Cybersecurity Agency makes it known that it is working on the case and that it is “following events since the early hours of the morning”.
NoName’s Claim 057(16)
The claim arrived in the morning on the Telegram channels of the group which in these hours continues to share messages providing details of new attacks and announcing others in the next few hours. These are Ddos attacks – Denial of service attack – which occurs through a coordinated offensive of tens of thousands of attempts to access sites simultaneously, bringing down their servers.
“Italy will provide Ukraine with the sixth package of military assistance, which will include three types of air defense systems,” the hackers wrote on the Telegram channel. All messages were shared with an image of a bear, a clear reference to Russia, giving a paw to the Italian flag.
“As Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said during a press conference in Kiev, we are talking about the SAMP-T, Skyguard and Spike anti-tank systems. Today we will continue our fascinating journey through Russophobic Italy”, continues the message from the hackers, which, like all subsequent ones, ends with a Russian flag followed by a phrase in Cyrillic: “Vittoria a noi”, pressing the ‘Z’ , a letter that became famous for branding Russian tanks during the invasion of Ukraine.
Who is No Name, the Russian group that claimed responsibility for the attack
NoName 057(16) is among the most active Russian groups in the cyber warfare alongside the kinetic conflict in Ukraine. The group was created a year ago, in March 2022, shortly after the entry of Russian tanks into the territory of Kiev. He immediately became the protagonist of a series of attacks against government entities and critical infrastructure in Ukraine and in the countries that support it. In particular Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Norway and Finland.
It is the first time that these attackers have targeted Italy. Even if it is not the first time that Italy has been hit by pro-Russian hacker groups. Last year, in April, the Killnet group (this too would be close to the Russian foreign secret services) brought down the Senate, Defense and Foreign Affairs website with an attack similar to the one carried out today by No name. Even if, the experts explain, it is less complicated to manage.