Belgian telecoms briefly disrupted by pro-Russian cyberattack

BRUSSELS

Belgian telecom operators Proximus and Scarlet experienced brief disruptions early Wednesday following a DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service cyberattack, according to the Belga news agency.​​​​​​​

Proximus spokesman Fabrice Gansbeke said technicians detected unusual traffic at 7.20 am local time (0620GMT) and immediately implemented countermeasures.

"From 7.30, we saw a sharp increase in traffic. The impact was very limited: our systems held up," he added.

In a DDoS attack, hackers flood a website with massive traffic, temporarily rendering it inaccessible. The attacks do not compromise user data.

Ghent University Hospital also faced a DDoS attack around the same time, which slowed communication with some external systems and briefly delayed access to certain information.

The pro-Russian hacker group NoName057 posted a message on Telegram claiming attacks against Scarlet, Proximus and an internal Telenet portal. Telenet, however, denied the claim.

The hackers cited recent comments by Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken, who said NATO would "flatten" Moscow if Russia attacked Brussels. "We advise the Belgian minister not to throw such statements around," the group wrote.

NoName057 has previously targeted Belgium. Ahead of last year's October elections, the group disrupted websites for four consecutive days and again in March, targeting government websites.