Seven of Sweden's top online newspapers were disabled for several hours this past weekend after a series of apparent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, the Agence France-Presse has reported.
Shortly before the coordinated cyberattack took place, a Twitter user threatened, “The following days [sic] attacks against the Swedish government and media spreading false propaganda will be targeted [sic].” The affected publications were Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen, Aftonbladet, Dagens Industri, Sydsvenskan and Helsingborgs Dagblad.
Swedish police on Saturday released a statement that, roughly translated, stated: “Because of the cyber attacks that hit multiple media newsrooms, police have launched a preliminary investigation, and [are] now working on the necessary resources needed for the investigation.” Multiple news reports have quoted Swedish police as stating the fake DDoS traffic was generated by computers in Russia, though the attackers are not necessary based there.