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Swedish parliament website hit by DDoS attack

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Sweden's parliament has been hit by a so called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that has disrupted access to its web page, it said on Wednesday.

The web page was partially down on Tuesday and appeared slow on Wednesday.

"The analysis shows that it is a denial-of-service attack," a parliament spokesperson said. "Right now the web page can be slow and it can be difficult to watch our web casts."

DDoS attacks work by directing high volumes of internet traffic towards targeted servers in a relatively unsophisticated bid by so-called "hacktivists" to knock them offline.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and other Nordic leaders are due to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Finland's capital on Wednesday.

Sweden applied for NATO membership in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and authorities have warned of increased cyber attacks against Swedish interests.

The work to restore services on the Parliament web page was ongoing, the spokesperson said, adding it was not possible to say when it would be fully functional again.

(Reporting by Johan Ahlander; Editing by Simon Johnson and Chizu Nomiyama)