The European Parliament was struck by a “sophisticated” cyber-attack on Wednesday shortly after members voted to declare Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Services on the European Parliament website were severely disrupted in the incident, which is believed to have been caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

In a statement to Politico, Czech MEP Dita Charanzová said: “I confirm that the Parliament has been subject to an external cyber attack, but the Parliamentary services are doing well to defend the Parliament.”

DDoS attacks involve directing large volumes of traffic to web servers in an attempt to knock them offline.

This has been a favoured method employed by cybercriminals and state-sponsored hacker groups in recent years, and has been used to devastating effect since the onset of the war in Ukraine.

Statistics from Check Point show that around 87% of victims are often targeted “multiple times” once a server vulnerability has been identified.

Killnet group claims responsibility

The attack on the European Parliament website came just moments after MEP’s voted to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism in response to military strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine.

As the attack unfolded, Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament tweeted that a Russian-backed hacker group had claimed responsibility.

She said: “@Europarl_EN is under a sophisticated cyberattack. A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility. Our IT experts are pushing back against it & protecting our systems.

“This, after we proclaimed Russia as a state-sponsor of terrorism.”

The @Europarl_EN is under a sophisticated cyberattack. A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility.

Our IT experts are pushing back against it & protecting our systems.

This, after we proclaimed Russia as a State-sponsor of terrorism.

My response: #SlavaUkraini

— Roberta Metsola (@EP_President) November 23, 2022

Eva Kaili, a Greek MEP and VP for the European Parliament, told Politico that there was a “strong indication” that the attack came from the Kremlin-backed Killnet group.

The Russian-backed hacker group has since claimed responsibility for the attack in a message posted on Telegram.

Killnet has previously harnessed DDoS attacks to disrupt Ukrainian government services.

Earlier this week, the group claimed responsibility for a wave of DDoS attacks which targeted a number of UK websites, including the Royal Family’s official site.

Killnet said the attacks were in response to the UK Government’s continued backing of Ukraine.

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Parliamentary security teams were able to rebuff the attack, according to MEP’s, and services on the website have since been restored. However, there are concerns that follow-up attacks could occur.

Commenting on the European Parliament cyber attack, Xavier Bellekens, CEO of Lupovis said: “Lupovis actively tracks cybercrime across the globe, and we often see attacks take place in response to specific events, which is what has happened here.

“Fortunately, it looks like the EU Parliament has been able to defend the availability of its services, but it does show there is no smoke without fire.”

Bellekens added: “When organisations or governments ally themselves with Ukraine, or when they oppose Russia’s invasion, we often see them suffer a tsunami off attacks in retaliation.

“These are not just from nation-state actors, but hacktivists and patriotic hackers as well.”

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