Lyce · Hybrid Watch
hw_98f81600f4966b6c
Romanian government and border-police websites hit by a major DDoS attack.
Romania experienced a coordinated distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) assault impacting multiple state websites, including those of the Government, the Ministry of Defence, Border Police and national rail operator. The national cybersecurity directorate (DNSC) and the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) determined that the attacking infrastructure leveraged network equipment located outside Romania and used compromised routers to flood traffic at the targeted domains. The pro-Kremlin hacker group Killnet claimed responsibility via Telegram, stating the attack was in response to Romania’s growing military support for Ukraine. Although there was no public report of physical damage or loss of life, the disruption affected public availability of essential government and transportation websites for hours, creating confusion, diverting security resources and exposing vulnerabilities in state-cyber defences. While the institutions are located across Romania, the incident emphasised national-level exposure rather than a mere border-zone incident. FThe dynamics reflect hybrid-warfare logic: using cyber-means to impose cost, degrade readiness and signal threat without conventional weapons; Romania saw this as part of the broader pattern of Russian-aligned cyber operations targeting NATO/EU states adjacent to the Ukraine war-zone. Romania responded by publishing a list of 266 IP addresses used in the attack, mobilising its incident-response mechanisms and raising its public threat perception of cyber-warfare emanating from Russian proxies.
E/M/R/S scores
- EExistence0/4 · Not assessed
- MIntent0/4 · Not assessed
- RRussian actor link0/4 · Not assessed
- SRussian state responsibility0/4 · Not assessed
Facts
No facts
Sources
-
- Role
- discovery_lead
- Date
- 2022-04-28T22:00:00Z
Romania experienced a coordinated distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) assault impacting multiple state websites, including those of the Government, the Ministry of Defence, Border Police and national rail operator. The national cybersecurity directorate (DNSC) and the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) determined that the attacking infrastructure leveraged network equipment located outside Romania and used compromised routers to flood traffic at the targeted domains. The pro-Kremlin hacker group Killnet claimed responsibility via Telegram, stating the attack was in response to Romania’s growing military support for Ukraine. Although there was no public report of physical damage or loss of life, the disruption affected public availability of essential government and transportation websites for hours, creating confusion, diverting security resources and exposing vulnerabilities in state-cyber defences. While the institutions are located across Romania, the incident emphasised national-level exposure rather than a mere border-zone incident. FThe dynamics reflect hybrid-warfare logic: using cyber-means to impose cost, degrade readiness and signal threat without conventional weapons; Romania saw this as part of the broader pattern of Russian-aligned cyber operations targeting NATO/EU states adjacent to the Ukraine war-zone. Romania responded by publishing a list of 266 IP addresses used in the attack, mobilising its incident-response mechanisms and raising its public threat perception of cyber-warfare emanating from Russian proxies.