Prague, May 31 (CTK) – Anonymous group hackers attacked on Monday the website of the Czech Senate which was unavailable for a few hours and they explained this by their disagreement with a bill allowing to block websites providing unauthorised online gambling, the Senate Office’s Denisa Cermakova told CTK on Tuesday.
According to the Root.cz server, the hackers also attacked the websites of the police, the Interior Ministry and the senior government Social Democratic Party (CSSD).
Both the ministry and the CSSD have confirmed the attack for CTK.
The websites of the Interior Ministry and of the police and firefighters which fall under the ministry had problems still this morning.
“This morning we registered unsuccessful attempts to attack some applications of the public administration,” the Interior Ministry’s spokeswoman Martina Nemcova told CTK.
But she said the information systems of the administration were not threatened, only the websites were unavailable for two hours.
“Now, we are analysing in detail the extent and origin of the attempts and we are taking steps to secure the information systems of the public administration the ministry operates,” Nemcova said.
The CSSD’s spokesman Michal Kacirek said “it was no massive, dangerous or successful attack. The common user of our website did not recognise anything.”
Hackers attacked the CSSD website at the end of April already.
The Novinky.cz server wrote that the Senate’s website was the target of a DDos attack at around 21:00. The website was unavailable until midnight.
In an English-written e-mail, the hackers claiming allegiance to the international Anonymous group, wrote that they hacked into the websites in protest against the passing of a bill restricting the freedom of the Internet.
The Senate approved on May 26 a stricter regulation of gambling which allows the Finance Ministry to block the websites providing unauthorised gambling.
The bill was criticised by the opposition, Internet providers and the government digital agenda coordinator, Tomas Prouza. The bill is yet to be signed by President Milos Zeman.
“If this is to be a reaction to the passing of a certain bill, I would like to note that the Senate is a sovereign institution and that every bill is proposed by a ministry and passed by the Chamber of Deputies, too,” the Senate’s spokeswoman Eva Davidova told the public Czech Television (CT).
