Greek govt websites hit by cyberattack, 2nd in week – officials

The Greek government said on Friday that the official websites of the prime minister, the national police and several important ministries had been briefly disabled by a cyberattack but have been restored.

The distributed denial-of-service or DDoS attack “led to the malfunction of certain websites,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas said. “Countermeasures” had been successfully implemented, he said.

Along with the prime minister’s website, targets in the attack late on Thursday included the websites of the ministries of public order, interior, foreign affairs, and the merchant marine, as well as the Greek police.

It was the second cyberattack against government websites in less than a week. Responsibility for the first attack was claimed in an online post by a group of hackers who purported to be from Turkey, AP reported. Greek officials have not said whether they consider that claim to be true.