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Italian police said Russian hackers tried to disrupt the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest with a series of cyberattacks.
Saturday’s Eurovision grand finale and the last two semi-finals were attacked through the pro-Russian hacker organization Killnet in denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, according to a police statement.
Italian police said he had been blocked.
The contest, which took place in Italy, was seen as a public show of solidarity with Ukraine and a wave of anti-war sentiments across Europe, with Russia excluded from Eurovision earlier this year.
In a Telegram article, Killnet responded to claims by Italian authorities and said he was not the attacker.
“According to foreign media, Killnet attacked Eurovision and they were arrested by the Italian police, so Killnet attacked Eurovision,” the organization wrote.
The hacker said he had now “declared war” on Italian police, along with ten unspecified countries, in reaction to the accusation.
They also hinted that they had gotten rid of the online page of the Polizia Postale (postal police) fighting cybercrime in Italy.
As of Monday afternoon, the site was not available outside the country, Euronews may not independently determine the reason.
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“In collaboration with ICT Rai and Eurovision TV, various DDoS-type PC attacks targeting network infrastructure voting operations and performing song performances have been mitigated,” the Italian government said.
In the same statement, Italian police added that they had noticed an argument about the attacks on Killnet’s alleged Telegram account. No additional main points were provided through the police.
DDoS attacks try to prevent it from running well by flooding them with traffic, just as too many cars can clog a general road. If successful, DDoS attacks make it inaccessible.
Killnet made headlines earlier this year after claiming its duty for an attack on the foreign hacktivist movement Anonymous, which led to the shutdown of its servers.
This came after Anonymous pledged to reveal important details about Russian troop movements and other army data following the country’s invasion of Ukraine in February.