Turkish Hacking Group Lion Soldiers Team Claims Responsibility For DDoS Attack On Austrian Parliament

On February 7, 2017, it was reported that the Turkish hacking group "Aslan Neferler Tim" (ANT), known in English as "Lion Soldiers Team," had claimed responsibility for a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Austrian parliament's website, causing it to become unavailable for 20 minutes. A post on ANT's Facebook page claimed responsibility for the hack, reading in Turkish: "Our reaction will be harsh in response to Austrian racism against Muslims!!! (Parliament down)." ANT has also claimed to have carried out "operations" against the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), an Austrian airport, and the Austrian central bank. The DDoS attack was said to also be similar to attacks carried out against Austria's Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries. Relations between Austria and Turkey have suffered a downturn since Austria began leading a charge to have EU accession talks for Turkey dropped, following Turkey's crackdown on dissent after the failed coup.