The official website of the Royal Family experienced downtime today after reportedly being “attacked” by Russian hackers. The royal.uk website displayed an error message for approximately two hours this morning following a “denial of service attack.”

This development comes in the wake of Queen Elizabeth enhancing defenses against hackers, having learned that the Royal Family is a high-profile target. This type of attack transpires when a website is intentionally inundated with access requests, rendering it unable to cope. This differs from a traditional hacking incident where a criminal breaches the backend of a website.

It is believed that the website went offline shortly after 10.20 am and remained inaccessible for about two hours. Russian hackers have now claimed responsibility for the attack.

KillMilk, the alleged leader of the Russian hacktivist group KillNet, asserted in a Telegram post that they were behind the takedown. The website has since been restored, although it initially loads slowly. A source clarified, “The website wasn’t hacked. It was a denial of service attack. This occurs when a site is inundated with access requests.”