Who is “NoName057(16)” and what is he planning? In the middle of the final round of the election campaign, the Austrian parties are still dealing with this issue. The cyber attacker with close ties to Moscow is behind several, mostly failed, hacker attacks on the parties, some of which lasted until Tuesday morning. An expert is sounding the alarm. And a Russian hacker collective has now officially declared that it wants to manipulate Sunday’s elections.
“Meanwhile unavailable” and “temporarily offline” were the messages on the websites of several parties on Monday. Hacker attacks were carried out on the federal party ÖVP, the Tyrolean state party, as the “Krone” learned, but also on the SPÖ website, the FPÖ website and other pages of various media, such as the ORF. Almost all attacks were repelled and the party server data was protected.
Attack on just a dress rehearsal?
The so-called DDoS attacks, distributed network attacks (Distributed Denial-of-Service), were all carried out at about the same time and not coincidentally shortly before the National Council elections on Sunday. Were these attacks perhaps just test attacks for a much larger attack on Sunday? An expert is sounding the alarm.
“There is a cyber attacker with close ties to Moscow behind it,” says Cornelius Granig, head of the University Institute for Security Research and Crisis Management at Sigmund Freud Private University. According to Granig, the hacker targeted political parties in Austria shortly before the elections. “I think this is a diversionary tactic, it is clear that someone wants to sow confusion. Who knows what else will happen between now and Sunday,” Granig explains.
“NoName057(16)” is the hacker’s pseudonym. But he is apparently just one of many, as the ‘Krone’ learned from well-informed security circles. A Russian hacker collective has already claimed responsibility on Telegram and declared that they want to sabotage the National Council elections on Sunday. The Ministry of the Interior has been notified and local authorities have been warned from now on at the latest.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
