Wallonia web portal targeted by hackers

Hackers took the Wallonia region's official website offline for most of Wednesday - with internet security experts warning of more attacks on public websites in the coming days.

Wallonia.be was targeted by a denial-of-service attack, which involves inundating a web server with an unmanageably high number of requests, causing it to cease functioning.

Hackers' collective DownSec claimed responsibility for the operation in a short video. The site was back up-and-running on Wednesday evening.

It is the latest in a series of attacks targeting Belgian public authority websites, including those of the Brussels parliament, Senate and the Belgian prime minister and interior minister.

Belgian online security watchdog Ocam believes a large-scale cyber-attack by the collective Anonymous is being planned for Thursday. Ocam has warned IT teams at federal government departments and other public bodies to be on their guard.

Anonymous has a history of targeting sites on 5 November, to mark the anniversary of Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up the English parliament in 1605.

Belgium recently created a new cyber-security centre aimed at preventing attacks on public websites. Online security sources told Le Soir newspaper that Belgium "is significantly behind in terms of web security and lacks expertise in the face of a group like Anonymous".