The website of the armed forces of the former Soviet republic of Lithuania were hacked to show a provocative message about the designs of the Baltic state towards Russia, news website DELFI reported Wednesday.
The fake announcement, which appeared on the website of the Joint Staff of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, told visitors that one of the aims of the U.S.-led Saber Strike training exercises, which began on June 8, was to prepare for the annexation of Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave that boarders Lithuania and Poland.
"The contents were provocative and aimed at discrediting Lithuania and NATO," Lithuanian National Defense Minister Juozas Olekas said, adding that an investigation has been launched into the attack, DELFI reported.
This is not the first time that NATO-allied websites have faced cyberattack. Following Moscow's annexation of Crimea in March 2014, hackers took down the main public website of NATO itself.
Cyberattacks in the region also increased after the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia expressed concerns about Russian aggression.
Lithuanian government websites were also hacked in 2008 after the country outlawed the display of Soviet symbols. In that attack, the web pages were filled with hammer-and-sickles and five-pointed stars, the New York Times reported.
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