The Anonymous hacker collective is officially waging a cyberwar with Russia, Anonymous activists reported on Twitter. On Friday, a number of Russian sites were closed, incl. Russia today.
“Ukraine, which is a democratic state, was taken over by a fascist dictatorship. This is not a conflict between NATO and Russia, this is a struggle between democracy and fascism,” wrote Anonymous on Twitter.
The following sites are currently down: sovam.com, com2com.ru, ptt.ru, mil.ru, Government.ru, kremlin.ru, rt.com – the last two sites were briefly restored, but on Friday around the 13th Polish didn’t work again.
The attacks by hackers from the Anonymous collective are a response to the disinformation war waged by the Russian Federation. As Reuters reported after midnight on Friday, the Ukrainian government called on the hacker underground to help protect key cyber infrastructure and track Russian invaders.
Security measures were taken by the countries of NATO’s eastern flank. “In response to Ukraine’s request, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Estonia, Romania and Croatia are deploying Cyber Rapid Reaction Forces to help the (Ukrainian) authorities respond to cyber security challenges,” Lithuanian Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius tweeted on Tuesday.