An attempted hack against the Eurovision Song Contest by Russian cyber-attackers was stopped by Italian police.

The finale of the contest took place on Saturday the 14th of May in Italy and saw Ukraine’s entry, Kalush Orchestra performing ‘Stefania’, triumphant.

With Ukraine widely predicted as the favourite to win, riding a surge of European support in the wake of the Russian invasion, Eurovision represented a likely target for Russia.

The attempted cyber-attacks took place during the semi-finals on the 10th of May and during the finale on Saturday, allegedly by pro-Russian group Killnet and its affiliate Legion.

It targeted the Eurovision Song Contest’s voting platform and website in an attempt to crash the live stream of the show and stop voting.

Ultimately, the attacks were unsuccessful. The Italian police’s cybersecurity department blocked several attacks on Eurovision’s network infrastructure.

“The first attempt was made on Tuesday during the semi-final and peaked during the Ukrainian performance,” an Italian postal police spokesman said. “During the final on Saturday they tried all day to block the streaming and the voting but our firewall held”.

By using data gathered from pro-Russian group’s Telegram channels, Italian authorities were able to gather information to prevent the Eurovision hack and discover the actors’ locations.

“Killnet announced the attack on its Telegram channel but we were ready, and able to rebuff it,” the spokesperson added.

The hackers telegraphed their attack days before the Eurovision finale. Forbes reported that Killnet boasted that it would sway the voting by sending “10 billion requests”.

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In addition, on the 11th of May, the websites of several other Italian institutions were targeted, including the Senate, Ministry of Defence, and the National Health Institute. The hacks were able to bring down the websites for several hours, though no damage was recorded to the institutions’ networks.

According to Telegram data, Killnet claimed responsibilities for these attacks.

Russia had been excluded from the event over its invasion of Ukraine. In protest, Russian broadcasters withdrew from the European Broadcasting Union in protest, including VGTRK and Channel One, which have been accused of acting as mouthpieces for Russian state propaganda.

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