Russian hackers ‘crash Royal Family website’

Russian hackers claimed responsibility for taking down the Royal Family’s official website in a targeted cyber attack yesterday – just days after King Charles condemned the invasion of Ukraine.

Hacker KillMilk, the purported leader of the pro-Putin hacktivist group KillNet, said in a Telegram post that they had attacked the Royal Family’s official website on Sunday.

It was reported that the Royal Family’s website, royal.uk, was taken down for around 90 minutes, displaying an error message from around 10.20 on Sunday morning.

A royal source said hackers had ‘not gained access to the Royal Family’s website’. ‘The website went down due to a Denial of Service attack for around an hour and a half. There was no access to our systems or content,’ they said.

The cyber attack came just two weeks after King Charles’s condemnation of Russia’s ‘unprovoked aggression’ was met with a standing ovation in Paris, as he declared ‘Ukraine must prevail’.

It is understood that an investigation into the cyber attack is under way.