Austria’s parliament announced that a Turkish Islamist hackers’ group claimed responsibility for a cyber-attack that took its website down for 20 minutes this weekend. Lion Soldiers Team or Aslan Neferler Tim (ANT), the website that defends the homeland, Islam, nation and flag, claimed the attack, an Austrian spokeswoman said.
Relations between Turkey and Austria soured last year after President Tayyip Erdogan cracked down on dissent following a failed coup, and Vienna has since made a solo charge within the European Union for accession talks to be dropped.
On its Facebook page on Sunday, there was a screenshot indicating that the website was not loading. ANT had said in Turkish: “Our reaction will be harsh in response to this racism of Austria against Muslims!!! (Parliament down).” ANT claimed that it has executed “operations” against the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Although the parliamentary spokeswoman stated that “ANT has claimed responsibility.” When questioned if ANT was responsible, she said: “We assume so.” An Interior Ministry spokesman said today that an investigation had begun on the cyber-attack, and refused to go into detail but noted that no data was lost.
The website was taken down after its server was flooded with service requests, or “DDoS-attack.” DDoS attacks are the most common cyber-attacks.