In Italy, five banks were hacked by “pro-Russian groups,” Reuters reported, citing the country’s cybersecurity agency.
These are the banks Intesa Sanpaolo, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, BPER Banca, FinecoBank and Banca Popolare di Sondrio.
Hackers resorted to DDoS attacks. A Reuters source at one of the banks told Reuters that their site went down due to heavy traffic, but only for a short period of time, while the mobile app continued to work.
According to the Italian agency, the attack was carried out by hackers NoName 057 (16). According to antivirus developer Avast, the group has been active since 2022, it has been carrying out “politically motivated attacks” on government resources, websites of telecommunications and transport companies. Malefactors, in particular, attacked the websites of state institutions of Ukraine, the Baltic States, Norway and Finland.
In the West, hackers, allegedly linked to Russia, are often accused of attacks on government agencies and companies. In mid-June, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency (CISA) reported that several US federal government agencies were attacked by Russian hackers, among the affected structures was the Department of Energy. And the agency admitted that the number of affected structures of companies could reach several hundred.
CISA said that the attacks affected the MOVEit application, which is used to transfer files. As CNN wrote, the Clop ransomware group may have been responsible for the hacks.
The Russian authorities deny any connection with the hacker groups. According to presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the country “did not, does not and cannot have any involvement in any manifestations of cybercrime.” Linking any hacker attacks to Moscow is absurd, the Kremlin insists. “No one can explain why [такие группы ассоциируют] it is with Russia, and not with some, for example, European country, ”Peskov said in January.