A group of anonymous hacktivists bombarded Russia with cyber attacks after President Vladimir Putin declared “cyber war” in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine, reports the BBC.
Of all the cyberattacks carried out since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, the Anonymous hack on Russian TV channels stands out.
The break-in was filmed in a short video showing a television program being interrupted by footage of exploding bombs in Ukraine and soldiers talking about the horrors of the conflict.
The video began streaming on February 26 and was shared by Anonymous’ social media accounts with millions of followers. “NOW: #Russian state TV channels have been hacked by #Anonymous to broadcast the truth about what is happening in #Ukraine,” one post reads. The video quickly gained millions of views.
One small group of anonymous hackers claimed they were responsible for hacking Russian TV channels within 12 minutes.
The hackers justified their actions by saying that innocent Ukrainians were killed. “We will intensify attacks on the Kremlin if nothing is done to restore peace in Ukraine,” they added.
Anonymous said they also hacked Russian websites and stole government data, but Lisa Forte, a partner at cybersecurity firm Red Goat, said most attacks so far have been “pretty rudimentary.”
According to her, hackers mainly use DDoS attacks (denial of service attacks), in which the server is overloaded with a flood of requests. They are relatively easy to implement and only temporarily display websites offline.
“But the TV hack is incredibly creative,” she said, “and I think it’s pretty hard to pull off.”
Who are Anonymous?
The hacktivist group first appeared in 2003 on 4chan.
The group has no leadership, its motto is “We are Legion”.
Anyone can claim to be part of the group and break into any case, but they usually attack organizations accused of abuse of power.
Their symbol is the mask of Guy Fawkes, famous for Alan Moore’s graphic novel V as Vendetta, in which an anarchist revolutionary overthrows a corrupt fascist government.
The group has many social media accounts, with 15.5 million followers on its Twitter pages alone.
Anonymous hasn’t been this active in years.