More than 40 Austrian organizations had their websites subjected to distributed denial-of-service attacks by pro-Russia hacktivist operations NoName057(16) and OverFlame that have been underway since last week ahead of the country's election on Sunday, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
Aside from disrupting the websites of the country's financial service entities, airports, and stock exchange, both NoName057(16) and OverFlame hackers have also deployed DDoS intrusions against the websites of Austria's OVP and SPO political parties. However, Radware noted that long-term impact has not been observed from the hacktivist operations' attacks. Attacks by NoName057(16) have been primarily facilitated by the DDoSia botnet project, which is dependent on the usage of other hacktivist groups, according to Radware, which also noted the Cyber Army of Russia Reborn's participation in the latest intrusions. "It is common to see like-minded threat actors form ad-hoc alliances and collaborate on campaigns to increase their impact," added Radware.