Sweden’s main public TV broadcaster disrupted by cyberattacks

Disruptions rattled Sweden’s national TV broadcasting company SVT on Tuesday following a series of cyberattacks that rendered access to its website impossible, after universities, hospitals and regional administration offices faced similar attacks last week.

“We saw increased activity and calls to our servers that were abnormal. Someone is testing our systems. Further analysis is needed to see who is behind it,” SVT’s Director of Technology Adde Granberg said after the attack.

According to SVT, it could be a denial of access attack – an attack on a computer system which, while not causing permanent damage or granting access to secret information, risks major disturbances by restricting the system’s use.

Several other media companies, as well as educational institutions have encountered similar issues, SVT reports.

Over the weekend and on Monday, a number of Swedish universities, including the Karolinska Institute, Swedish University Network (Sunet) and Luleå University of Technology, were hit by such an attack.

For SVT, the attack did not come as a total surprise as the hacker group “Anonymous Sudan” called for cyber attacks against Swedish authorities and banks, Radio Ekot earlier reported.

These hackers claim to be protesting against the Quran burning in Stockholm and announced beforehand that they would attack Swedish universities.

(Charles Szumski | EURACTIV.com)