Pro-Iran Group ALtahrea Hit Port of London Website by DDoS Attack

A seemingly ‘politically motivated’ DDoS attack knocked down the Port of London authority’s website.

The Port of London Authority/PLA has become the latest victim of a cyberattack that caused the forced shut down of its website, the company confirmed on Tuesday, May 24th.

Check Point Research also confirmed the DDoS attack, citing that an Iranian group launched Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack to shut down the PLA website.

The Port of London Authority

The PLA is a public trust that maintains and supervises the Thames Tideway’s ups and downs from the Kent/Essex Strait to Teddington Lock towards the North Sea end and oversees 200,000 commercial/leisure vessels.

ALtahrea Team Hacking Group Claims Responsibility

As per the latest updates, the DDoS attack is politically motivated, and the ALtahrea Team hacking group is responsible for the attack. The group claimed responsibility for the attack on their Telegram channel at 8 pm.

Check Point researchers wrote that ALtahrea is a pro-Iranian hacker gang that previously launched attacks against the Israeli Port Authority, the Israeli 9 channel, the Jpost, and other Israeli entities.

The group has also attacked Nasdaq, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s official website, and the Turkish media platform Anadolu Agency.

ALtahrea on Telegram (Image: Hackread.com)

Researchers claim that the Iranian government apparently operates this group, and its members are staffed either by Iraqis who support Iran or the Iranian government. The PLA website’s online infrastructure was targeted by a DDoS attack last night. PLA representative stated that they are investigating the attack, however, their operating systems are functioning normally.

The good news is that at the time of publishing this article, the PLA’s website was back online.

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