The royal web site was topic to a “denial of service assault”, a royal supply has alleged.
Royal.uk, the official hub for details about King Charles, Queen Camilla and their household, was down for round 90 minutes on Sunday morning (1 October), starting at 10am.
A denial of service assault means the location was bombarded by visitors, which triggered it to cease working, the supply defined.
Although described as an assault, this occasion is just not the identical as hacking, which entails the accountable occasion efficiently entering into the web site, leaving it compromised.
Neither the content material nor the methods of the royal web site have been accessed on Sunday.
The positioning is now up and operating as ordinary. It seems to be conducting an extra safety examine for guests to the location, as indicated by a message that seems earlier than entry is granted.
The web site supplies updates on the King and Queen, in addition to historic details about royal residences and artwork.
It’s presently unknown who’s accountable for the cyber assault, the supply instructed PA.
Russian hacker group Killnet took duty for the assault, posting about it on their Telegram channel. Nonetheless, it has not been confirmed in the event that they have been the group have been behind it.
In August, Britain’s intelligence providers detected proof linking a cyber assault on the electoral fee in 2021 to Russians. The assault left the info of 40 million UK voters uncovered, and was not detected till October 2022 – greater than a yr after the breach came about.
Former GCHQ director Sir David Omand instructed BBC Radio 4’s PM that Moscow can be “first on my checklist of suspects”, whereas Sir Richard Dearlove, the previous head of MI6, mentioned Russia “can be on the prime of the suspects checklist by a mile”.
Omand mentioned: “Russians – and I level to them particularly – have been interfering with democratic elections for some years now. Consider the 2016 US election, after which the French election, after which the German election, even our personal 2019 election.”
Further reporting supplied by PA
