The group’s offensive Anonymous against Russia continueswith new attacks scored by the collective of hacktivisti in the last few hours. Hackers are taking action both by blocking government websites and media linked to the Kremlin, as well as with more demonstrative actions. Addressing the Russian population several times to declare that “No. Anonymous is not at war with Russia. We are at war against Putin. The Russian people do not support Putin’s war of aggression against the Ukrainian people ”.
New Anonymous attacks on the Kremlin
The Anonymous collective has a composite and difficult to trace background. One of the problems ofanonymity, which while protecting hackers when attacking political targets, on the other hand makes it difficult to blame. In fact, in recent days we have seen many attacks against Russian institutions and media, as well as against Putin personally. All accredited to Anonymous, even some are attributable to other hacker groups.
Some attacks led them GhostSecurity. And it seems that it is the work of taking the Belarusian railways out of use to slow down the Kremlin troops Belarus Cyber-Partisan, as reported by Il Fatto Quotidiano. But finding those responsible is complicated. In the past few hours it seemed that the documents stolen from the main arms manufacturer in Belarus Tetraedran ally of Moscow, had been stolen from Liberland, Pwn-Bär Hack Team. But the official denial has arrived via Twitter.
Also, as the cybersecurity expert lawyer writes Stefano Mele to Formiche.net, there is the possibility that in the claims of Anonymous “the operations of some states have been hidden, which have found it very convenient in certain historical periods to hide their identity behind the now famous Guy Fawkes mask.”
In reporting Anonymous attacks, we are therefore concerned to make it clear that this information is difficult to independently verify. Some of the reported attacks they could be traced back to hackers who do not share the Anonymous line and belong to other groups. What seems evident, however, is that a real cyber war is taking place to slow down the invasion of Ukraine and thwart Putin’s terrible plan.
A series of hacker attacks all weekend
Over the past weekend, the hackers of Anonymous (and not only) have absolutely not rested. Indeed they continued to attack relentlessly several Russian government sites, media outlets close to Putin and the dictator himself. Here is a very brief summary of the attacks carried out during the weekend, to learn more you can read the article linked here.
- February 25 Anonymous publishes the data of the Russian Ministry of Defense, in a massive doxing operation. In the last few hours, however, some sources of information report that those data may already have leaked online in the past, with the hacktivists only gathering the information.
- Anonymous took the Gazprom sitemain Russian gas supplier (as well as sponsor of the Champions League, at least until the invasion begins)
- In Belarusthe site of the leading manufacturer of weapons and services railway have been knocked out
- Anonymous claims to have taken de sites offlinel Ministry of Justice and Energy Russians, with DDoS attacks.
- The hacktivist group has published over 40 thousand documents in Russian del Russian Nuclear Safety Institute, the Moscow National Security Institute. Over 2 gigabytes of data that would be under consideration by Kyiv’s allies
- Between Sunday and Monday, the group announces that they have blacked out over 300 websites. These include Russian financial institutions, government agencies and media outlets
- On Monday, Anonymous announced that it had stolen the data of over 20,000 current accounts from the Russian state SberBank. It also blocked the site bestchange.rupreventing you from converting rubles into cryptocurrencies
- The group allegedly blocked several Russian media outlets, including TASS, rbc.ru, kommersant.ru, fontanka.ru e iz.ru. By showing a message of support to the Russian people and an invitation to rebel against Putin
Some of these attacks have now returned, just as it happened that the hackers were repelled: for example, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency announced it. But the cyber battle continues.
The offensive continues: the new Anonymous attacks
Already yesterday afternoon (28/02) Reuters reported the arrival of a message on some sites of the main Russian media. Among these the press agency TASS, as well as rbc.ru, kommersant.ru, fontanka.ru and iz.ru. The message read an invitation to rebellion for the Russian people, who have already shown that they know how to take a strong stand against Putin: in recent days, arrests have risen to 6,000 for protests against the invasion of Ukraine.
Translating the text, we read: “Dear citizens. We invite you to stop this madness, do not send your children and husbands to certain death. Putin is forcing us to lie and putting us in danger. We are isolated from the whole world, they stopped buying our oil and gas. In a few years we will live like North Korea. Per spend? Why does Putin want to enter the history books? It’s not our war, let’s stop it ”.
To these reprisals are added other demonstrations. As electrek reports, it appears that some stations charging station for electric cars a Rosseti have shown a dissenting message. We read Putin Xujlo, which we could translate as “Putin the head of c *** o”. Others showed the writing “Glory to Ukraine”.
These new acts of dissent add up to other attacks personally directed at Vladimir Putin. Like the manipulation of data of his Super Yacht ‘Graceful’, who pretended to crash into a bogus ‘Ukrainian Snake Island’. The navigation data then showed that the Russian president’s yacht he was headed to Hell. An operation useless for strategic purposes but which could affect the ego of the Russian president.
In recent days it seems that Anonymous has also made resound of Ukrainian folk songs on the sites of television stations close to the Kremlin. However, there is no direct confirmation of this attack.
What does Anonymous want to achieve with these new attacks?
As we have seen, some of the attacks arise from the desire to prove that the Kremlin is vulnerable. The messages addressed to the Russian population and the mockery of Putin want to undermine the president’s media control and foment dissent.
On the other hand, there are security issues for the Ukrainian and Russian population, with Anonymous and other hacking groups who are sharing information on how to bypass Kremlin censorship and communicate with the rest of the world even in these stages of conflict.
Then there are the DDoS attacks and the data theft. As a German Anonymous member explains to The Independent: “DDoS attacks alone will not be enough to crush the regime. Putin, who has used hacker squads and troll armies against Western democracies, is taking some of his own medicine. ” The goal is therefore to “keep Russia’s IT systems busy and on the defensive. So they can’t do anything in Ukraine or the West. Obtaining information is also an important point ”.
The situation is constantly developing and we expect further attacks in the next few hours. We will keep you posted.