Who are they?
NoName05716 is a pro-Russian hacker group targeting countries supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. The group has been operating since early 2022 and is best known for their DDoS attacks on government websites and critical infrastructure.
What do they do?
Their attacks are aimed at disrupting digital services by overloading websites with traffic. This is often done in response to political or military support for Ukraine.
Known hacks
- 2023 - Poland and Lithuania: They attacked Polish and Lithuanian government websites, especially those of airports and government agencies, following their support for Ukraine.
- 2024 - Belgium: On Oct. 7, 2024, they took down Belgian provincial and city websites in a large-scale DDoS attack. The attack was supposedly in retaliation for Belgium's delivery of military aid to Ukraine.
- 2023 - Norway: The group targeted Norwegian government websites and financial institutions after the country supported NATO activities in Eastern Europe.
Methodology
NoName05716 uses distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, in which a large number of computers or bots are used to flood servers with requests. As a result, websites become temporarily inaccessible. They are very active on Telegram, where they often announce and celebrate their attacks.
Impact and risks
The NoName05716 attacks mainly target digital services that are critical to civilian services. The disruption can cause panic among citizens, damage to the reputation of government agencies and economic losses.
How to avoid
Strong DDoS protection, such as advanced firewalls, network segmentation and real-time monitoring, can help detect and mitigate these attacks. Using cloud-based security solutions with high scalability is also essential to minimize the impact of such attacks.