Anonymous declares war on Russian government

The hacker collective Anonymous has declared war on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. As part of several targeted cyber attacks against the Russian government, they want to rally support in their own way. One of the first targets was the state broadcaster Russia Today (RT). Other attacks targeted Russian government websites that were down for hours.

Anonymous blows the whistle on cyber war on Russia

“The Anonymous collective is officially in cyber war against the Russian government,” the grouping wrote via Twitter. They condemn the invasion of Ukraine in the strongest possible terms. The goal is now to support the people of Ukraine. The operation runs under the hashtag #OpRussia.

In principle, the plan is to target the cyber attacks exclusively at the Russian government, though it is inevitable that the country’s private sector will also be hit, the statement continues.

RT News, the Russian government’s propaganda channel, was the first target of the hackers Thursday night, who also announced their success on Twitter. RT News had confirmed the attack and several-hour outage of its website shortly after. In addition, several Russian government websites were completely paralyzed, such as the Kremlin’s site and the Duma.

Russia directs hacking attacks against Ukraine

Ukraine has also been subjected to several hacking attacks for weeks now, but according to the U.S. and U.K. governments, they originate from Russia. As CNBC reports, the Kremlin denied being responsible for the cyber attacks even a day before the military invasion began.

The BBC, on the other hand, reported that the Russian cyber attacks were a long-term planned operation accompanying the military invasion of Ukraine. Last Wednesday, several DDoS attacks were already reported targeting the state websites, banks and Ukrainian organizations. However, the infrastructure had been quickly restored.

Meanwhile, however, massive and widespread DDoS attacks are also underway against Ukraine. In addition, there are other attacks with more complex malware such as HermeticWiper, which security researchers at ESET Research describe. This allows data on infected systems to be irretrievably deleted (“data-wiping malware”). Several hundred systems in Ukraine are said to have already been affected.

In order to strengthen the protection of critical infrastructure against attacks, the government of Ukraine is also said to have sent out an appeal to Ukrainian hackers, as reported by the Reuters news agency. The source cited is two people familiar with the cyber project. According to the report, the volunteer hackers are to help protect electricity plants and hydroelectric power stations.