Pro-Russia hackers’ attempts to disrupt Eurovision thwarted by Italian police

Pro-Russia hackers tried to prevent Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra from winning the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, but were thwarted by the Italian police.

According to the police, pro-Russia hacker groups Killnet and its affiliate, Legion, tried mounting cyberattacks on network infrastructure during the contestants’ performances, as well as during the voting process that led to Kalush Orchestra’s win on Saturday.

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Killnet had already claimed responsibility for several cyberattacks on the websites of Italian institutions on May 11, including  the Senate, Italy’s upper house of parliament, and the National Health Institute (ISS).

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Killnet and Legion’s attempts to disrupt the Eurovision Song Contest to prevent Ukraine from winning thus comes as no surprise: in a Telegram message, the group had earlier threatened to disrupt the contest by sending “10 billion requests” to the online voting system of Eurovision and diverting votes “to some other country.”

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Known for their Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, Killnet is a recent emergence: according to cybersecurity agency Cyjax, the group was first formed in March 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24, triggering a war that appears to be nowhere near an end.

After its emergence, Killnet launched the ‘Killnet Botnet DDoS’ resource and attempted to attack hacker collective Anonymous’ website after the latter took down several websites associated with the Kremlin in the weeks following the beginning of the Russian invasion. However, Cyjax told Forbes that no such central website exists adding that it was “more likely that an independent generic Anonymous website was targeted to boost morale for the Russian side.”