The European police agency reported today that in a coordinated international operation it has destroyed the infrastructure of a cyber network linked to Russia, which is linked to a series of so-called DDoS attacks on Ukraine and its allies.
Operation Eastwood targeted a group calling itself NoName057(16), which was identified by the Netherlands last month. Authorities there determined that the network was behind a type of attack called a "denial of service" in which the target is overloaded and rendered inoperable.
Several local governments and organizations associated with the NATO summit in the Netherlands were targeted by these so-called DDoS attacks.
According to Europol, the cyber network also attacked Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland.
The result of the coordinated international strike was "the disruption of the attacker's infrastructure, which consisted of over a hundred computer systems around the world, and the majority of the group's central server infrastructure was taken down from the Internet," the statement added.
Police forces and judicial authorities from France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and the USA participated in the operation.
The operation was reportedly carried out simultaneously. The suspects were described as "mostly Russian-speaking (Russian) sympathizers." Hundreds of people believed to have supported the group were contacted with information that the group had been disbanded and that their involvement was suspected.
German authorities have issued six arrest warrants for the suspects. Two are accused of being the main leaders of the cyber group. Five of them are on the most wanted list published by Europol on its website.
One person was detained in France and one in Spain. From America, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) participated in the operation.
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