Royal Family's Website Back Online After DDoS Attack
Pro-Kremlin Hackers Claimed Responsibility for the Attack
Overt Operator
October 02, 2023
A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack took the British Royal Family's official website "Royal.uk" offline, over the weekend, InfoSecurity magazine reported on October 2. The site was reportedly down for "90 minutes" following the attack.
At the time of this report, Overt Operator researchers tested the site connection and found that the site was back online. The site was running secure connection requests at the time of this report.
The DDoS attack was confirmed by a royal family official who explained that the attack had taken the family's website offline, Sky News reported. The site was reportedly back online by "lunchtime" on Sunday, October 1, but the site had, at the time of Sky News' report, also been running security checks for site connection.
The Russian hacker group "Killnet" has taken responsibility for the attack, media reports explained. Killnet, a pro-Kremlin group, has become particularly aggressive to nations supporting Ukraine.
While the royal site was reportedly downed for "about an hour and a half" no content, access, or systems were gained by the attackers, The Telegraph reported.
The attack against the Royal family's website comes on the heels of a warning from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who told the CyberUK conference in Belfast, North Ireland, earlier this year that Russian cyber groups are motivated more by ideology than by financial drivers. The Chancellor warned that the motive of these groups is to "disrupt and destroy" and that attacks from Russian threat groups are "particularly concerning."