Pro-Russian hackers have targeted the Prince of Wales’s official website, among other websites, as they begin their latest campaign against the United Kingdom.
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Why target Prince William?
According to a message on Telegram, the Russian-aligned hackers, Killnet, launched the attack 'due to the supply of high-precision missiles to Ukraine'.
They have taken down the Prince of Wales’ website because of Prince William’s continued support for Ukraine. Newsweek reported that they could access the website on 22nd November, despite the hackers' claims.
CyberKnow, a self-proclaimed cyber tracker and threat analyst, posted on Twitter Killnet’s threat. One commenter confirmed that the Prince of Wales website was, in fact, down.
#killnet has started its latest campaign against the #UnitedKingdom targeting a royal website.
— CyberKnow (@Cyberknow20) November 22, 2022
They claim to be targeting medical and government websites as well#cybersecurity#infosec#RussianUkrainianWar#UkraineRussiaWar️#England#Britainpic.twitter.com/d2dFK8hdWk
Express reports that the attack could have happened in the early hours of this morning. They speculate that it was a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) - when a server is overwhelmed by numerous bogus requests, usually from bot servers – something for which Killnet is known.
However, Newsweek points out that the hacking of the Prince of Wales's website might not be as ‘glorious’ as intended because the information on the website is so out-of-date that it still lists Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales.
On top of which, a cybersecurity expert told Express that DDoS attacks were ‘unsophisticated’ and that the hackers were ‘unlikely to compromise data or systems using this approach’.
Not the first royal hacking
As it turns out, this isn’t the first time the Royal Family has been the target of hackers. According to Newsweek, private, unpublished wedding photos of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were potentially stolen by Russian hackers.
The book Finding Freedom claims:
On September 12, 2018, a computer programmer based in Russia managed to hack into an online cloud storage account that contained over two hundred unseen photos of Harry and Meghan that had been taken by the photographer Alexi Lubomirski.
Other targets
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Killnet has claimed responsibility for several attackson numerous countries.
The group also pledged to target 'all medical institutions, Government services and online services' such as London Stock Exchange, the British Army and Bacs, the Bankers' Automated Clearing System.
Express reports that all threewebsites are still operational, but the British Army website is undergoing ‘planned maintenance’.
Sources used:
- Express: Prince William targeted by Russian hackers as Killnet launch multiple attacks
- Newsweek: Prince William Hacked by Pro-Russian Group
