Zeebrugge

Summary

A pro-Russian hacker group conducted distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against multiple Belgian municipal and port websites, including Zeebrugge, causing temporary outages by overwhelming servers with traffic. The NoName057 collective claimed responsibility, citing retaliation for Belgium's planned military support to Ukraine and threatening further disruptions during upcoming local elections. Cybersecurity authorities assessed the attacks as non-dangerous but disruptive, impacting public access to targeted sites. The group publicly listed affected entities on its Telegram channel and framed the operation as a response to perceived anti-Russian policies.

Motives

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TTPs

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Description

On 6 October 2024, pro-Russian hacker collective NoName057 conducted a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack targeting Belgian municipal and port websites, including those of Sint-Genesius-Rode, Linkebeek, Antwerp, and Zeebrugge. The group announced the targets via their Telegram channel at 8:44 AM local time, overwhelming servers with traffic to render sites inaccessible to legitimate users. This marked the second consecutive day of attacks by the group, following a similar disruption to provincial websites on 5 October. The Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB) confirmed the incidents as low-severity DDoS operations designed to cause temporary outages rather than data breaches or system compromises. Service interruptions occurred intermittently throughout the day at affected organizations, though the CCB emphasized the attacks lacked sophisticated intrusion capabilities.

NoName057 explicitly cited Belgium’s planned consideration of military aid to Ukraine as motivation, referencing a proposal to transfer three Caesar artillery units to Ukrainian forces. The group’s Telegram statement condemned Belgium as “Russophobic” and warned that support for Ukraine would provoke further cyber retaliation. Additionally, the collective hinted at planned disruptions targeting Belgium’s local elections scheduled for 13 October 2024, though no specific attack vectors or targets were disclosed. Cybersecurity authorities monitored the situation but did not report any permanent damage to infrastructure or secondary incidents beyond the confirmed DDoS activity. The attacks remained limited to website availability issues without evidence of network infiltration or data exfiltration.

Sources

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