The website of the Finnish parliament is currently inaccessible due to a denial of service attack. According to Yle, a Russian hacker group has posted on their Telegram channel that they are behind the attack.

Yle said that the group claiming responsibility for the cyber attack was the Russian hacker syndicate NoName057(16).

"We decided to make a 'friendly' visit to neighbouring Finland, whose authorities are so eager to join Nato," the group said, justifying their cyber attack on its Telegram channel.

The denial of service attack started on Tuesday 9 August around 14:30.

Parliament said they are working with the National Cyber Security Centre and service providers in order to restore the website.

The same Russian hacker group has previously carried out cyberattacks on state institutions in Poland, Lithuania and Norway.