Romanian President Klaus Iohannis (right) promised to send a full Patriot air defence system to Ukraine as part of Romania’s “pretty generous” arms support for Kyiv. Credit: Andrei Pungovschi / Getty.

Romania’s decision to donate a Patriot air defence system to Ukraine’s war effort was met with a deluge in Russian-affiliated hacks, cybersecurity experts say.

Romanian defence officials initially debated transferring a Patriot to Ukraine at the start of June, prompting 352 direct-path attacks on Romanian government websites in a single day (2 June), according to new findings by NetScout’s ASERT Threat Intelligence Team.

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Cyberattacks have predominantly targeted the websites of the Romanian President, Parliament, Ministry of Justice and Border Guard.

Banking, telecommunications and transport infrastructure were also hit following President Klaus Iohannis’ decision to send a full Patriot system to Ukraine on 20 June.

The report, released yesterday (16 July), also reveals the Cyber Army of Russia targeted the Port of Constanta after Romanian officials’ refused to grant visas to Russian and Belarussian delegations for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Bucharest.

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Other cybergangs have claimed credit for the spike in attacks on Romania, including CyberDragon and NoName057.

Do Russian cyberattacks concern Ukraine’s other backers?

The pro-Russian cyberattacks are primarily intended to deter arms shipments to Ukraine by Nato allies.

“Romanian donations have been pretty generous,” says Wilson Jones, defence analyst at GlobalData. “Aside from a full Patriot system, Bucharest has sent old Patriot batteries which are hugely important Ukrainian air defences.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will have taken stock of the retribution dished out to Romania.

On Monday (15 July), Madrid promised to send ten Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine as part of a wider military support package, amid scrutiny over Spain’s defence spending and Nato contributions during the alliance’s Washington summit last week.

So far, Russian-affiliated cybergangs are yet to turn their sites on Spain, according to Chris Conrad, principal security analyst at NetScout.

“We haven’t observed any significant increase in DDoS attacks targeting Spain in the last 48 hours,” Conrad told Army Technology.

Jones believes that “Spain is probably at higher risk” but added that “any western state opposing Russia is going to face this challenge”.

The cycle of arms donations to Ukraine and retributory Russian cyberattacks is expected to continue alongside Moscow’s advances into Ukrainian territory.

International diplomats have called for a second ‘peace summit’, while Russia and Ukraine have reportedly agreed to exchange 90 prisoners of war each today (17 July) in a UAE-brokered deal.