Yesterday Belgium was again hit by a cyber attack from the pro-Russian hacker collective NoName057.

The hackers used a DDoS attack to shut down several Belgian websites, including the Sint-Genesius-Rode and Linkebeek websites. Belga knows that the websites of the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge were also temporarily offline.

Adam Marre, a former FBI agent and CISO at Arctic Wolf, recognizes the pattern. “This attack is closely related to the tactics Russia uses to destabilize governments and organizations, particularly during elections. The timing of the attack, just before Sunday’s elections in our country, fits this pattern perfectly.” He stressed that all Western governments must be wary of an escalation of such attacks.

What is the point of a DDoS attack?

A DDoS attack sends a large amount of internet traffic to a website, causing it to overload and temporarily take it offline. The goal is not to steal personal information, but this cyber attack simply aims to crash important websites.

Protecting against such a distributed denial of service attack is quite difficult because it is very easy to carry out. These attacks are not very dangerous, but they can result in loss of website visitors or damage to your image. The Center for Cyber ​​Security Belgium continuously monitors cybercriminals and their strategies to prevent similar actions.

NoName057 targets Ukraine’s allies, including Belgium. Earlier this week, our country was hit by a similar cyberattack. The websites of the province of Limburg and East Flanders were affected, as well as the websites of the Chamber of Deputies, the Walloon government and the city of Antwerp.