Pro-Russian hacker group says it attacked Norway
“Good morning Norway! - All squads at battle,” was the short message the Killnet cyber attack cluster posted via its Telegram channel Wednesday morning. The announcement was framed by a manipulated photo of Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt, by the hackers named “Mrs. Error”.
The hacker group listed a number of Norwegian web portals to be targeted, among them the police, the banking’s ID-login system and several public agencies’ online systems.
Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM) confirms that Norway now is targeted.
“The attacks are aimed at a number of large Norwegian companies that offer important services to the population,” says NSM director Sofie Nystrøm in a press statement.
A few of the web portals were taken down by the Russian group’s DoS (denial of service) and DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. However, the damage caused by the attack was by noon on Wednesday still unclear, newspaper Dagbladet reported.
The hacker attack on Norway comes only two days after the same group claimed cyberattacks on governmental and private institutions in Lithuania. This, allegedly, was retaliation for stopping the transit of goods to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.
Based on statements from two top legislators, Russian state-controlled media on Wednesday published several articles claiming the government in Oslo is violating the Svalbard Treaty by denying Russia to ship winter supplies via mainland Norway to the mining community of Barentsburg on Svalbard, as previously reported by the Barents Observer.
Moscow has not explained why goods from Murmansk need to be shipped via the land border to Norway on trucks before being loaded onboard a Norwegian cargo ship from Tromsø sailing to Svalbard. From Murmansk, supplies can be shipped directly to Barentsburg with a Russian cargo vessel.
The Killnet first appeared after Russia’s February 24 massive escalation of the military invasion in Ukraine and has claimed responsibility for cyber attacks on several other European nations like the Czech Republic, Moldova, Romania and Italy.
