(Bloomberg) — Romanian government websites and other institutions were the target of a cyberattack Friday morning that the nation’s intelligence agency attributed to a pro-Russian hacking unit.
The hacker group known as Killnet claimed credit for so-called distributed denial-of-service attack, which began at around 4 a.m. local time, the Romanian Intelligence Service said in a statement. Such attacks attempt to overload systems by flooding the target with superfluous requests from multiple sources.
The cyber assault hit the websites of the country’s defense ministry, border police, railway company CFR Calatori and a financial institution, which were not functional for several hours. Killnet had previously targeted institutions in the U.S, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic and NATO, the agency said.
Romania’s ruling Social Democratic party and parliament speaker Marcel Ciolacu said this week that the eastern nation bordering Ukraine is considering options for potential military aid to Kyiv. Ciolacu commented after a visit to Ukraine with Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, where they pledged more assistance to help Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion.
(Updates with information about the attacks from the first paragraph)
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