‘Hacker disturbed TV images on Eutelsat during the European Championship final’

An unknown hacker is said to have disrupted live images of the European Championship final on the Eutelsat 10A last weekend. As a result, viewers of the Walloon TV channel RTBF and the French broadcaster TF1 suffered from missing images.

The disturbances in the image supply via the Eutelsat 10A already started during the first half of the final between Spain and Italy. As a result, 810,000 satellite viewers missed the first goal. At least half of the RTBF viewers would have switched to the French channel TF1, but this channel would also have suffered from disruptions. After some time, the RTBF decided to switch to a live feed of the Eutelsat 7A, which was also used by the Flemish VRT.

According to the RTBF, the Eutelsat 10A had a hard time during the European Championship final. Between 9 pm and 10 pm, the unknown attackers would have tried three more times to disrupt the live images of the final, but this would not have bothered the viewers.

Presumably, the attackers used satellite jamming. TV images on Eutelsat’s satellites are said to have been disturbed several times in the past. It is still unclear who carried out the attacks and what equipment was used.