The websites of at least three political parties in the Netherlands were attacked on Thursday, as Dutch voters cast their ballots in the European elections.
A group of pro-Russian hackers has claimed responsibility for what appears to be a coordinated attack against the websites of Dutch political parties and EU institutions on the first day of the European elections.
Several groups have even made a declaration of war these days.
At least three Dutch political parties, Christian Democratic Alliance, Freedom Party and the Forum for Democracyclaimed their websites were targeted by cyberattacks on Thursday.
HackNeTa hacking group that claims affiliation to Moscow, claimed responsibility for the attack on its Telegram channel. They recognized that it had also aimed to Reformed Political Party and the European Court of Auditorswith headquarters in Luxembourg.
The European Court of Auditors’ website appeared to be down on Thursday afternoon.
Christian Democratic Allianceaffiliated with the center-right European People’s Party, said in a statement on social media platformserious” attack distributed denial of service (DDoS).
The leader of the far-right party Forum for Democracy, Thierry Baudet, also posted on the X network to announce that his party’s website was down. Baudet said that “the entire team is working overtime to repel the attack,” adding: “Russia?”.
The website of the far-right group Geert Wilders He also fell on Thursday. This comes amid growing concern over the possibility that the elections –the largest transnational votes in history– can be manipulated by foreign agents.
High risk until Sunday
EU officials declared on Wednesday that they considered the 72 hours before the voteadding that they had mobilized tailored rapid alert teams to respond to any threats, such as cyberattacks or coordinated disinformation campaigns.
The officials added that in several EU countries – including Italia, Spain, Germany y Poland– Campaigns aimed at spreading disinformation about voting had been detected in recent days, including efforts to discourage voters from going to the polls or encouraging them to cancel their vote.
HackNeT is a network of hackers that, according to some Western security companies, cybersecurityworks in coordination with the Russian spy services.
The group announced on their channel Telegram first thing in the morning I aimed “Europe’s Internet infrastructure“on the occasion of the beginning of the voting in the elections to European Parliament.”
A similar attack occurred this Wednesday against official sites in Sweden.
