Table of contents
- The political link: accusations of Russophobia against Mattarella
- The hackers’ modus operandi
- Italy’s response: cyber security under pressure
Rome 17 February 2025 – Once again, the pro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16) has launched a series of cyber attacks against critical Italian infrastructures.
This time, the targets included the airports of Linate and Malpensa, the ports of Trieste and Taranto, and the online systems of Banca Intesa San Paolo. The method used was the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, aimed at overloading the target servers and making them inaccessible.
The political link: accusations of Russophobia against Mattarella
This attack was not just an act of cybercrime, but also carried a clear political message. In their claim of responsibility, the hackers directly targeted President Sergio Mattarella, labeling him as “Russophobic.”
The reason? The President’s recent statements comparing Russia’s aggression in Ukraine to the strategies of the Third Reich.
The hackers’ modus operandi
The DDoS attacks, a technique frequently used by NoName057(16), involve bombarding a target’s servers with an overwhelming amount of traffic, sent from a network of infected computers.
This overload renders services inaccessible to legitimate users, causing temporary disruptions. However, according to the National Cyber Security Agency, this latest wave of attacks did not cause significant damage to the daily operations of the affected infrastructures.
Italy’s response: cyber security under pressure
The Postal Police and the experts from the National Cybe Security Agency quickly intervened to mitigate the effects of the attack, successfully limiting its impact on services.
However, these incidents once again highlight the urgent need to strengthen cyber security in Italy, especially amid rising geopolitical tensions.
