Ukrainian hackers inflict massive cyberattacks on Russia to celebrate Putin’s birthday
By Robyn Dixon
Moscow: Russia has suffered major digital outages for a second day after hackers targeted its court information system, taking down websites and claiming to have wiped court documents and decisions in the system’s database, after a massive attack on television stations.
The hackers, who called themselves the “BO Team”, posted a message with an obscenity declaring that the attack was made to mark President Vladimir Putin’s 72nd birthday on Monday, the same day an attack on Russia’s online state media channels occurred.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the country’s state television and media company VGTRK suffered an “an unprecedented hacker attack on its digital infrastructure”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts a meeting the day after he turned 72.Credit: AP
According to pro-Kremlin media outlet Gazeta.ru, that attack took down Russian state television stations Rossiya-1, Rossiya-24, Rossiya Kultura, Karusel and around 80 regional television and radio stations. It reported the attack had been attributed by Russian intelligence agencies to a Ukrainian-linked hacker group. The stations continued to broadcast their traditional analog signal.
The VGTRK reported that its systems had not suffered significant damage in the attack, and online broadcasting had resumed. The court websites remained unavailable, however.
Cyberattacks are increasingly used by both sides in the Ukraine war, although this week’s attack was unusual in its extent.
People react during a nationwide minute of silence honouring fallen Ukraine soldiers on Defenders Day at the improvised war memorial in Independence square in Kyiv, on Tuesday.Credit: AP
The official Telegram channel of the courts in Russia’s Vladimir region reported that its websites were out of action “for technical reasons” and recommended that citizens avoid submitting their documents online. In Ufa, the capital of the Bashkortostan region, some courts postponed hearings due to the attack.
The Pskov region court system confirmed the outage: “For technical reasons, the official websites of the courts of the Pskov region and the electronic document filing system ‘Justice’ are not available at the moment,” a Pskov courts statement said.
Ukraine has accused Russia of mounting sweeping cyberattacks throughout the war and before the invasion, including an attack on the main mobile operator Kyivstar that paralysed the service for several days in December, impacting more than 24 million users. Russia also attempted to cripple Ukraine’s power system in March 2022, shortly after the invasion.
According to the Centre for European Policy Analysis, Russia has scaled up cyberattacks on Ukraine, but these have diminished in their efficacy as Kyiv has strengthened security for its systems.
During the first half of 2023, Russian cyberattacks increased by 123 per cent compared to the previous six months, according to Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP), but it reported that the number of critical incidents declined by 81 per cent.
Last month, US agencies including the FBI, National Security Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, reported that hackers in Russia’s GRU military intelligence service had carried out attacks on NATO and European countries as well as Ukraine, as early as 2020.
A grand jury in Maryland, US, last month indicted five Russian GRU operatives and another Russian in cyberattacks against Ukraine that were designed to pave the way for the 2022 invasion, targeting the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, State Treasury, Judiciary Administration, State Portal for Digital Services, Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Energy and others.
Putin’s birthday drew a coordinated outpouring of birthday wishes, including greetings from officials and video messages from schools around the country.
Conservative businessman Konstantin Malofeyev posted on Telegram a “Salute in honour of the Supreme Leader’s birthday from Stalin’s bunker,” referring to Bunker GO-42 in Moscow, a former Cold War underground emergency nuclear command headquarters for Joseph Stalin in the event of a nuclear war, that now functions as a museum.
Ultranationalist figure Alexander Dugin posted, “God save the Tsar!” on his Telegram channel. “Putin rules the country confidently and unhurriedly.”
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