Italy’s foreign ministry said its website was the subject of a cyber-attack on Thursday, 8 October, that news outlets attributed to a pro-Russian group.

Reports indicated the incident involved a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which large numbers of requests are directed at a targeted website in order to overwhelm and disable it.

The attack was “effectively mitigated” without causing any disruption, the ministry said in a statement.

Political disruption

It said it was closely monitoring the situation in cooperation with the National Strategic Hub, a cloud platform that hosts critical state infrastructure, and relevant authorities.

Foreign minister Antonio Tajani said the ministry last year approved reforms including cyber-security, and has been strengthening its capacity to prevent, monitor and respond to threats.

“In this context, Italy has decided to work with Romania and other EU member states to put forward proposals at upcoming European meetings to designate those responsible for cyberattacks, including those targeting Italian institutions,” Tajani said.

The ministry said checks were underway to determine whether similar attacks had been carried out on the websites of Italian embassies and consulates abroad.

Officials didn’t indicate who might have been responsible for the attack, but local news media on Thursday night said it was believed to be NoName057(16).

The group is a pro-Russian hacking organisation that emerged in March 2022, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and has claimed attacks on government bodies and private companies in Western countries.