Pro-Russian hackers hit Italian bank, airport websites

Et bilde av et tastatur der Enter-knappen har påmalt et russisk flagg, med en liten gullbjørn stående på tasten. (Image credit: Shutterstock / Aleksandra Gigowska)

Italy's cybersecurity agency has pinned recent DDoS on Noname057
The group is responsible for numerous DDoS attacks across the globe
The attacks were in retaliation to comments made by Italy's President

Recent attacks against a number of Italian websites have been linked to pro-Russian hackers, Italy’s cybersecurity agency has confirmed.

The attacks disrupted 20 websites linked to banking and airports, and are likely to have stemmed from recent comments from Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella’s comments likening Russia’s war against Ukraine to Nazi expansionism before World War II.

The Italian cybersecurity agency said that the attacks caused no major disruption, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who also heads the ruling Brothers of Italy party, defended the President’s comments.

Russian retaliation

The attacks were conducted by a group known as Noname057(16), who have been linked to a number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks across the world. The group’s main targets in Monday’s cyberattacks appeared to be the Intesa Sanpaolo bank website, the Banca Monte dei Paschi website, Iccrea Banca’s website, and the websites for both Milan’s Linate and Malpensa airports.

The group conducted targeted cyberattacks against Taiwanese targets late last year including companies such as Formosa Plastics, Wistron, and United Microelectronics. The group also claimed to hit a number of government websites linked to airports and court systems.

Noname057 also struck out against Japan’s economy in late 2024 following increases to Japan’s defense budget and increased coordination in military exercises with the US, which Moscow posited as a significant cause for concern.

Both the attacks against Taiwan and Japan appeared to have caused some disruption, albeit very limited. Noname057 has been a significant contributor to the DDoSia botnet according to a recent paper.

Via Reuters

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Benedict has been writing about security issues for over 7 years, first focusing on geopolitics and international relations while at the University of Buckingham. During this time he studied BA Politics with Journalism, for which he received a second-class honours (upper division), then continuing his studies at a postgraduate level, achieving a distinction in MA Security, Intelligence and Diplomacy. Upon joining TechRadar Pro as a Staff Writer, Benedict transitioned his focus towards cybersecurity, exploring state-sponsored threat actors, malware, social engineering, and national security. Benedict is also an expert on B2B security products, including firewalls, antivirus, endpoint security, and password management.