Information Technology Security

A pro-Russian hacker group that targeted the Eurovision song contest declared 'war' against Italy and ten other countries. By Vilius Petkauskas, Cybernews Killnet, a pro-Russian hacker group, was not happy the Italian police announced successfully blocking distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the Eurovision song contest hosted by Italy. The Italian police announced that hackers had unsuccessfully tried to infiltrate the opening night and the finals of the song contest. Ukrainian folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra (pictured in the lead photo) performed on both nights of the attacks. Despite the attempted attacks, however, Ukraine went on to win the Eurovision song contest. In contrast, Russia was barred from the event, boasting a viewership of 200 million, due to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February. The Italian authorities claim that over 100 officers monitored the event, thus preventing attempts to hinder the contest that most European nations took part in. ...

By ,  Reuters MILAN, May 15 (Reuters) - 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, authorities said on Sunday. 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. read more 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, ...