14 DAY TRIAL // Austria’s parliament blamed a Turkish Islamist hacker group for a cyber attack that took down the institution’s website for 20 minutes this past weekend.
The Aslan Neferler Tim (ANT) group, also known as the Lion Soldiers Team, claimed the attack, says the parliamentary spokesperson, as reported by Reuters. The group’s website says it is a defender of the homeland, Islam, the nation and flag, although no political links are made.
ANT took to Facebook on Sunday to post a screenshot of the Austrian’s parliament website which was not loading. Along with it came a message in Turkish that read that their reaction will be harsh in response to Austria’s racism against Muslims.
Also targeted in the attack seems to have been the Austrian central bank and the Austrian airport, as well as the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party.
The method - DDoS attack
An investigation has begun into the cyber attack, but no data has been lost according to official sources. Whether that’s the truth or not remains to be seen. Since ANT is the one that claimed the attack, the parliament’s main assumption is that this is the truth, but the investigation is still ongoing nonetheless.
The website was taken down via a DDoS attack. Service requests flooded the server keeping up the Austrian parliament’s website, which managed to take down access to the page for less than half an hour. Since DDoS attacks can cause loads of harm and downtime can be quite extensive, the low time the site was inaccessible indicates either that this was a warning or the ANT doesn’t have that much juice to sustain a prolonged attack. The first option is more likely, however.
The attack comes in the wake of a deterioration of the relations between Turkey and Austria, especially following the failed coup of last year. Austria has since opposed Turkey’s accession to the European Union.