Pro-Russian hacker group claims responsibility for attempted cyberattacks on Irish websites

Voter registration website Voter.ie was among the sites targeted. Stock Image.

A number of Irish websites experienced failed cyberattacks during Friday night as part of an organised campaign across EU member states, the Department of Communications has said.

A a pro-Russian hacker group has claimed responsibility on their social channel, and this indicates websites such as Bus Éireann and voter registration website Voter.ie were among the attempted victims.

The Electoral Commission had previously warned that Ireland could be targeted by hackers during the election and that such a move "could be very bad news".

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) became aware of attacks involving the websites being flooded with internet traffic to prevent real users from accessing the services. 

These are known as Distributed Denial of Service attacks or DDoS for short.

A spokesman for the department said on Saturday: “This activity is part of a pattern of events across the EU and is in line with the experiences of other EU Member States.” 

The NCSC has been working with the websites involved offering technical advice and guidance, as well as co-ordinating the response.

The spokesman said the impact has been minimal adding this was mainly due to how prepared the websites were for potential attacks.

In the Netherlands, the outlet Politico.eu reported several websites belonging to Dutch political parties experienced similar attacks on Thursday.

Those cyberattacks were claimed by a pro-Russian hacker group called HackNeT via their Telegam account, Politico reported.

This Telegram account also indicates Bus Éireann’s website was among those targeted, as was that of the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland and voter.ie, a website where Irish voters can check to see if they are registered to vote or not.

It has also been reported that the European Court of Auditors' website was targeted. This site was down on Thursday afternoon but now appears to be functioning normally.

A spokeswoman for the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland confirmed an attack was made on their website on Friday.

"The attempted attack was identified by our web security and monitoring system. As a proactive measure, the RCSI website was taken down for a short time to allow for the site attempting to carry out the attack to be blocked and checks to be carried out," she said.

"The RCSI website has been restored, and we are confident that no information was compromised."

A spokeswoman for Bus Éireann confirmed on Saturday their website was one of those affected in the attempted attacks.

"Through working with the National Cyber Security Centre we were able to manage the attack and take the necessary measures to ensure our site was accessible to the public," she said.

A spokeswoman for Dublin Bus confirmed a cyberattack was made on their website also.

"I can confirm that Dublin Bus was targeted as part of a series of failed cyberattacks on Irish websites. Dublin Bus worked with the National Cyber Security Centre and ensured that the necessary measures were taken to mitigate the attack," she said on Saturday evening.