The European Parliament’s website went down for several hours on Wednesday after “pro-Kremlin” hackers struck back against Russia designated a state sponsor of terrorism, according to reports.
Earlier in the day, Reuters reported, European lawmakers voted to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, saying the country’s use of military strikes against hospitals, schools and energy infrastructure violates international law. .
The declaration is mainly symbolic because the European Union cannot enforce the declaration with a legal framework.
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After the vote, hackers shut down the European Parliament’s website for several hours, Reuters said, in a distributed denial-of-service attack. The site was back up two hours later.
“The European Parliament is the target of a sophisticated cyber-attack,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said on Twitter. “A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility. Our IT experts are fighting back [and] protect our systems.
“This, after we proclaimed Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. My answer: #SlavaUkraini,” he added, meaning Glory to Ukraine.
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A distributed denial-of-service attack is “a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service, or network by overwhelming the target or surrounding infrastructure with a surge of Internet traffic.”
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