ROME — For days, Antonio Tajani did not say anything publicly. The Italian foreign minister’s personal data was already circulating on the dark web, posted, shared and monetised by hackers his government would eventually identify as operating in Russia’s orbit, and the attack was still ongoing when he finally broke his silence on Saturday.
Tajani announced in a social media post on Saturday that “for days now, cybercriminals have been publishing my personal data on the dark web and seeking further information, effectively exposing me to new threats and intimidation.”
“They are also targeting my family; they are willing to pay for more details about me and my loved ones,” Tajani added in his X post.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in a separate statement, blamed “pro-Russian hackers” for the leaks and expressed her “full solidarity” with the foreign minister. “The sale of confidential information about institutional representatives is a cause of serious concern and must be tackled with the utmost determination,” Meloni added.
The attack has exposed something that European governments have long known but rarely confronted so starkly in public: that Russia’s hybrid warfare against Western nations supporting Ukraine is no longer confined to cyberattacks on infrastructure or disinformation campaigns on social media. It now includes the targeted doxing of individual ministers, their home addresses, personal contact details and family information traded on criminal networks as instruments of intimidation.
Who Is Behind The Attack And Which Group Did It?
According to ANSA, Italy’s national news agency, Italian investigators attribute the data leak to the pro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16).
Italian media attribute the campaign to the pro-Russian group NoName057(16), which has listed 18 people it calls enemies of the Russian Federation. The group has offered money on a dark-web site for passwords, addresses and personal information about 18 people it considers enemies.
Screenshots seen by Reuters showed Tajani’s picture on a list of 18 “citizens hostile to the Russian Federation,” which also included cybersecurity experts.
NoName057(16) is not an unfamiliar actor to European security services. The hacker group NoName has previously claimed cyberattacks against French city websites in retaliation for France’s support of Ukraine, and several Italian government and airport websites were targeted in a cyberattack claimed by the pro-Russian group on 28 December.
The group previously claimed responsibility for a series of cyberattacks of “Russian origin” that targeted facilities connected to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, hitting hotels in the Alpine resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo. The wide-ranging attack reportedly hit around 120 targets, including foreign ministry offices in the US as well as consulates in Sydney, Toronto and Paris. The group described the campaign on Telegram as retaliation for Italy’s support for Ukraine: “The Italian government’s pro-Ukrainian policy means that support for Ukrainian terrorists is punished with our DDoS attacks.”
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