One of the official broadcasters of Euro 2024 has confirmed it was hit by multiple cyberattacks that disrupted online transmission of a key match.
Polish broadcaster TVP said in a post on Twitter/X that it has been targeted by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on two separate occasions during the tournament.
The attacks were able to disrupt the online broadcast of Poland's match with Austria on Friday 21, following earlier disruption to the Poland vs The Netherlands game the previous weekend.
"Technical problems" or DDoS attack?
"We apologise for technical problems related to the broadcast of the Poland-Austria match on the Internet," TVP said in its post.
“After less than a minute, we took action in collaboration with national operators, which led to a mitigation of the attack. The IT teams have restored the service."
DDoS attacks look to target websites by bombarding them with large amounts of traffic, overwhelming servers and taking them offline - which in this case saw the online broadcast struggle under the volume of traffic it was being asked to handle.
TVP said that the earlier attack appeared to have been launched from IP addresses within Poland, but did not comment on the later incident.
In a separate statement, Pawel Olszewski, the Polish government deputy minister of digital affairs, told local media evidence pointed to Russian sources being behind the attack.
Olszewski said the attack looked to, " prevent Polish citizens from watching the match online” but that, "the attack was swiftly repelled...Had our services not been alert, there could have been real unrest, as everyone was eagerly anticipating the Euro and this match.”
TVP revealed it has also launched an alternative website to stream future broadcasts of Euro 2024 games, including Poland's final match against France later this week.
Via Reuters
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