During the Nobel Day, 10 December 2021, the official Nobel Prize websites were subjected to a cyberattack that has now been reported to the police by the Nobel Foundation and the Norwegian Nobel Institute. The attack was averted and did not affect website users’ experience or the dissemination of content. 

A so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack affected the www.nobelprize.org and www.nobelpeaceprize.org websites during the Nobel Day when the prize ceremonies were being live-streamed from Oslo and Stockholm. The cyberattack subjected the websites to extremely high loads and was designed to try to prevent our ability to update and publish new information about the Nobel Prize and the achievements of the Nobel Laureates. The Nobel Foundation and the Norwegian Nobel Institute therefore regard this as a serious attack on the Nobel Prize and have reported it to the police in order to help generate awareness of this type of cyberattack, which is unfortunately becoming more common in our societies and which poses a long-term threat to the freedom of expression. At present, there is no information on what party (or parties) were behind the cyberattack.