Anonymous news – live: Hacking attacks and cyber warfare could lead Russia to cut itself off from the internet

Vladimir Putin is getting ‘a sip of his own bitter medicine’, one German Anonymous group wrote

White House says Russian military intelligence behind cyber attacks on Ukraine

While Ukrainian forces fight against the Russian military's invasion, hackers from around the world caused disruption to Russia’s digital infrastructure.

Hacking groups such as Anonymous and the Cyber Partisans have claimed responsibility for cyberattacks on Russia’s banks, state broadcaster RT, and a Belarusian rail network reportedly used to move troops from Russia to Ukraine.

The “biggest Anonymous op ever seen” was claimed as Russian news channels like Russia 24, Channel One, and Moscow 24, including streaming sites, showed footage of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Peace talks between the two countries are ongoing between the two nations, but it remains unclear how long the bloodshed will last. Currently, these cyber groups have said that they stand with Ukraine against Russia’s powerful online forces - causing disruption to stop the country’s own attacks against Ukraine and the West.

Key points

• Anonymous hacks Russian state TV with Ukraine footage
• Russia may cut itself off from the global internet because of ‘continuous cyberattacks’
• Intel is out of Russia

[7 March 2022 09:43 · Adam Smith]

Anonymous hacks Russian state TV with Ukraine footage

Anonymous hacked streaming services and TV news channels in Russia to broadcast footage of the country’s war with Ukraine amid a heavy clampdown on information by Vladimir Putin’s government, according to reports.

Early on Monday, the hacking group, which identifies itself as activists from around the world, posted that it was involved in the “biggest Anonymous op ever seen” of hacking Russian news channels like Russia 24, Channel One, and Moscow 24, including streaming sites, to show footage of Russia’s actions in Ukraine as the invasion entered the 12th day.

“The hacking collective #Anonymous hacked into the Russian streaming services Wink and Ivi (like Netflix) and live TV channels Russia 24, Channel One, Moscow 24 to broadcast war footage from Ukraine [today],” it announced on Twitter with video footage.

The footage showed a message at the end, stating that “ordinary Russians are against the war” and called for Russians to oppose the attack on Ukraine.

Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian news organisation, confirmed the hacking.

[7 March 2022 09:47 · Adam Smith]

Netflix suspends its service in Russia as Western companies take stand over Ukraine invasion

Netflix has suspended its service in Russia, becoming the latest in a growing list of Western companies to take a stand over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

A spokesperson for the streaming giant announced on Sunday that it was severing all ties with Russia, cutting viewers in the country off from its services.

“Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The total shutdown comes just days after Netflix announced it was pausing all future projects and acquisitions in the country.

[7 March 2022 09:57 · Adam Smith]

TikTok suspends posting in Russia

As well as Netflix, TikTok is suspending live-streaming and posting new video content on its platform in response to Russia’s new “fake news” law, the company said on Sunday.

“In light of Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law,” TikTok said on its official Twitter account.

“Our in-app messaging service will not be affected,” it added.

[7 March 2022 10:35 · Adam Smith]

Samsung stops shipping to Russia

Samsung seems to have complied with a request from the Ukrainian government to stop shipping products to Russia.

Mykhailo Fedorov urged Samsung to block access to Samsung Pay and the Galaxy Store to send a message against “bloody authoritarian aggression” last week.

Now, Bloomberg reports that Samsung has suspended product shipments to Russia - including computer chips, smartphones, and consumer electronics.

“Our thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted and our priority is to ensure the safety of all our employees and their families,” Samsung said.

[8 March 2022 09:11 · Adam Smith]

Belarus hackers are attacking Ukraine via Blogspot

Researchers from Google have said that Belarusian hackers are making widespread phishing attacks against members of the Polish military and Ukrainian officials.

The attacks, which a spokesperson told the Washington Post were the first of its kind, may have been successful; Google does not know, it says, because they were not aimed at Google’s email accounts.

Google said the phishing emails had been sent from “a large number of compromised accounts and include links to attacker controlled domains” using “newly created Blogspot domains as the initial landing page, which then redirected targets to credential phishing pages.”

There, users are asked to enter their passwords, which are then used by the hackers. Google says that all known Blogspot domains have been shut down.

[8 March 2022 09:20 · Adam Smith]

China-based threats also attack Ukraine

Google also said that it has detected the ‘threat’ Mustang Panda trying to plant malware in “targeted European entities with lures related to the Ukrainian invasion.”

The campaign “represent[s] a shift from Mustang Panda’s regularly observed Southeast Asian targets.”

[8 March 2022 10:27 · Adam Smith]

Amazon says there are ‘new malware signatures’ against Ukraine

Amazon says it has observed “new malware signatures and activity from a number of state actors we monitor”, seeing both “an increase in activity of malicious state actors” and also “a higher operational tempo by other malicious actors.”

It continued: “We have seen several situations where malware has been specifically targeted at charities, NGOs, and other aid organizations in order to spread confusion and cause disruption. In these particularly egregious cases, malware has been targeted at disrupting medical supplies, food, and clothing relief.”

[8 March 2022 12:32 · Adam Smith]

Anonymous broadcasts ‘troll face’ meme on Russian radio

Anonymous has also claimed to have intercepted Russian military radio to make it broadcast the troll face meme.

A clip posted of the shortwave radio station UVB-76, which has been used by the country’s military since at least 1982 to send coded messages, was shared on Twitter.

[9 March 2022 08:46 · Adam Smith]

Internet backbone provider leaves Russia

Lumen Technologies, an American company that carries a significant percentage of the world’s Internet traffic, has announced that it will stop routing data for Russian organisations.

“Life has taken a turn in Russia and Lumen is unable to continue to operate in this market,” Lumen said in a statement. “The business services we provide are extremely small and very limited as is our physical presence. However, we are taking steps to immediately stop business in the region.

“We decided to disconnect the network due to increased security risk inside Russia. We have not yet experienced network disruptions but given the increasingly uncertain environment and the heightened risk of state action, we took this move to ensure the security of our and our customers’ networks, as well as the ongoing integrity of the global Internet.”

[9 March 2022 08:48 · Adam Smith]

Lumen’s departure is similar to Cogent Communications’ stance, a company that also provides structural internet support.

Last week, the company said that “economic sanctions” and “the increasingly uncertain security situation” meant they could not continue serving customers.

Chief executive Dave Schaeffer said the company did not want to keep ordinary Russians off the Internet, but had to take precautions to stop Russian government using Cogent’s networks to launch cyberattacks or deliver propaganda.

“Our goal is not to hurt anyone. It’s just to not empower the Russian government to have another tool in their war chest,” he said. Cogent did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent before time of publication.

Some of the company’s Russian customers reportedly include the state-backed telecom giant Rostelecom, Russian search engine Yandex, and two of Russia’s carriers MegaFon and VEON.