Pro-Russain Group Attacks Italian Government

Executive Summary

The pro-Russian hacking group Noname057 committed a series of cyberattacks on about 20 of the Italian government’s websites. The negative impact was the disruption of public services.. Mitigation measures would be network segmentation, advanced threat detection, or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protections. There are many best practices that would build cybersecurity resilience such as a zero-trust architecture, multi-factor authentication, and collaboration with cybersecurity agencies.

Background

A hacker group called NoName57 attacked the Italian government’s websites of the defense, interior, transportation ministries and law enforcement agencies [1]. The group claimed responsibility via social media. The siege caused spotty access to the Italian ports, airports, local transportation agencies and banks. 

The motive is likely due to Italian president Sergio Mattarella’s comments concerning Russia’s war on Ukraine. Mattarella compared the Russian invasion to the expansion of Nazi Germany before World War II [2]. This angered Moscow.

According to the Italian cybersecurity agency, the tactic used the most for the hacks were DDoS [3]. The Russian state backed actors aimed to overload the servers to obstruct day to day operations. The cyberattacks highlighted the increased use of cyber measures as a tool for political retaliation. The DDoS attacks were used to disrupt Italy’s critical infrastructure but the swift response of cybersecurity professionals mitigated the impact.

Impact

The consequences of the incident were significant. Impact of the cyber intrusion included disruption of critical services, national security threats, and political tensions. Public confidence in the government’s ability to safeguard critical infrastructure was also at risk.

Mitigation

Future mitigation strategies for similar attacks include the use of traffic filtering, rate limiting, and third-party DDoS mitigation services [4]. Traffic filtering locates and blocks malicious traffic while allowing legitimate users access. Rate limiting controls how many requests a user or system can make to a server within a given timeframe. Third party DDoS mitigation services aid by scrubbing traffic and provide large infrastructure capable of handling massive volumes of traffic. These measures lighten the load and keep the sites from being overwhelmed. 

Relevance

The actions of NoName57 highlight the critical role of cybersecurity in international relations. This stresses the need for robust resilience strategies to protect national critical infrastructure from threats. This case is a lesson on rapid response and international cooperation in addressing cyber incidents.

References

[1] Associated Press. (2025, February 18). Pro-Russian hackers attack Italian websites after president compares invasion of Ukraine to Nazis. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/italy-russia-hacker-attacks-ukraine-invasion-mattarella-d19818bfac0c89e159382e4dbfdf8ee5

[4] Fortinet. (n.d). What is DDoS mitigation? Implementing a DDoS mitigation strategy. Fortinet. https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/implement-ddos-mitigation-strategy

[3] Mous, Anton. (2025, February 18).Dozens of Italian websites targeted by Russian hackers. Cybernews.https://cybernews.com/security/italian-websites-targeted-by-russian-hackers/

[2] Reuters. (2025, February 17). Italian websites targeted by alleged pro-Russian hackers. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/alleged-pro-russian-hackers-hit-20-italian-websites-cybersecurity-agency-says-2025-02-17/