Late on Thursday afternoon, several websites belonging to Belgian public institutions fell victim to a cyber attack. Notable sites affected included those of the Royal Palace, the prime minister's
office, and the Senate, rendering them temporarily inaccessible.
The attack leveraged Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) techniques, wherein a substantial volume of data is directed at a system with the intent of slowing it down or causing it to crash.
A message that replaced the home pages of these websites read: "We are coming to Belgium to destroy Russia-hating websites." The message also made reference to Belgium's support for Ukraine and its recent commitment to supplying F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine starting in 2025.
Miguel De Bruycker, associated with the Centre for Cyber Security Belgium (CCB), remarked, "This is a well-recognized phenomenon. When a country decides to support Ukraine, it often becomes a target of cyber attacks lasting for one or more days."
The CCB detected an imminent attack on Thursday morning, enabling them to alert the affected services promptly and assisting them in taking necessary precautions.
Subsequently, access to all affected websites has been restored. The CCB has intercepted a list of the hackers linked to the attack but has not yet confirmed the source of the attack, whether it originated from Russia or elsewhere. Photo by B_A, Wikimedia commons.