Orders skipped. Shipments stopped. Company portals remained out of action for hours, in some cases for days. Economic damage yet to be measured. In October the cyber threat against Italy changed pace: it stopped remaining on the surface of websites and entered the operations of companies. The target was logistics, the vital infrastructure of the country system. For over two weeks, between 7 and 21-22 October, transport, shipping and public platforms ended up under a sequence of Ddos attacks whose intensity and duration were out of the ordinary in the sector. Analysts have already dubbed it the "Black October" of Italian logistics.
The first shot came on October 7. The public contracts hub, a platform connected to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, entrusted by agreement to Ithaca - the Institute for innovation and transparency of procurement and environmental compatibility - and hosted on the servers of the national strategic hub, has come under fire. The signature was that of NoName, a pro-Russian hacker collective already known for its disruption campaigns against Western governments, institutions and infrastructures. The attack was neutralized on the same day, the ministry later confirmed. Twenty-four hours later, the same group attacked the Farnesina, after Russian spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's attacks against Antonio Tajani. Another target, within a cyber pressure that in those days was spreading on infrastructure and transport and on the Italian administrations.
The technique, at least in appearance, is elementary. Millions of artificial accesses downloaded at the same time onto the systems until they are saturated and unreachable. The Ddos. But in October the weight of the attacks surpassed the demonstrative gesture. When, after MIT, logistics companies came into focus. The digital block has begun to transfer to the real chain of operations. Orders have slowed. Communications stopped. Shipments have stopped. This is where the leap in quality is measured: the cyber attack has no longer just obscured a web page, but has begun to disrupt the functioning of companies.
And the front has widened. Azimut Benetti Group, Neri Group, Confetra, the logistics association Alis, the container operator Lorenzini & C. Different objectives, within the same supply chain. Some incursions were claimed on Telegram channels, while specialists from the National Cybersecurity Agency followed the wave day after day. Several of the affected entities fall within the scope of Nis 2, the European regulation which imposes strengthened cybersecurity requirements on subjects considered essential for the functioning of the country. In some cases the systems were fully operational again after 24 or 48 hours. In others, the effects dragged on longer.
Then the chronology of the attacks crossed politics. On 20 October a new cyber attack also hit the Ministry of Defense website. Guido Crosetto spoke of hybrid warfare, with an indirect reference to Russia.
