Lithuanian energy company Ignitis Group was hit by what it described as its “biggest cyber-attack in a decade” on Saturday when numerous distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks were aimed at it, disrupting its digital services and websites.
Pro-Russian hacking group Killnet claimed responsibility for the attack on its Telegram channel on Saturday, making this the latest in a series of attacks launched by the group in Lithuania due to that country’s support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.
In a post on the Ignitis Group’s Facebook page on July 9, the company said it had been able to manage and limit the attack’s impact on its systems and that no breaches were recorded. However, the post also revealed that attacks were ongoing.
Speaking on Lithuanian radio, the country’s vice minister for national defense cautioned against excessive attention being paid to such cyber-attacks. He believes that their primary goal is seeking publicity and driving tensions in the region.
“We need to understand that publicity is a very important part of these attacks. If we don’t talk about them, the other side will lose motivation. When we talk about alleged victories, about alleged punishment of Lithuania, it’s motivating the other side,” Margiris Abukevicius told Ziniu Radijas news radio.
Lithuanian institutions and businesses have been hit by wide-ranging cyber-attacks since late June when it began enforcing EU sanctions on goods traveling to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic coast. Ignitis Group is one of the largest energy companies in the Baltic states.
It operates in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Finland where its core activities include power and heat generation and supply, power and natural gas trading and distribution. The group’s companies supply power and natural gas to about 1.6 million business and private customers.
In a press release, Ignitis Group said it is cooperating with responsible authorities and is continuing efforts to ensure the accessibility of its websites and digital services. Edvinas Kerza, head of business resilience at Ignitis Group, commented: "Our current priority is to ensure that the Group’s websites and systems used by the customers are running without disruptions. After the works are complete, we will immediately assess how we can improve our processes and strengthen the systems even more so that, even under such a large-scale attack, the operations are disrupted as little as possible."