A cyberattack disrupted the service used by municipalities and provinces to publish official documents on Monday. Pages containing council and provincial documents became difficult to access due to the attack on NotuBiz.
The timing of the disruption is striking. The Hague is hosting the annual NATO summit this week. In the run-up to the summit, authorities had already warned of possible cyberattacks.
The pro-Russian hacker group NoName05716 claimed responsibility for the attack via its Telegram channel. This group frequently attacks websites in countries that support Ukraine. However, the claim has not yet been verified by official sources.
Nationwide impact
The disruption affected the provinces of South Holland and Overijssel, as well as municipalities such as The Hague, Den Bosch, and Delft. The Hague reports that several suppliers are noticing large amounts of network traffic directed toward their systems. The municipality speaks of a nationwide situation in which various domains are limited or unavailable.
NotuBiz confirms that network traffic to their systems has increased. “We are currently experiencing disruption due to a large amount of network traffic to our systems,” the company said. The firewall is blocking incoming traffic, resulting in long loading times for users. The company has not yet confirmed whether this is a DDoS attack.
The disruption highlights the vulnerability of digital government infrastructure to cyberattacks. Although NotuBiz’s firewall blocked the traffic, the attack caused practical problems for citizens who wanted to access official documents.