Russian state television hit by cyber attack on the occasion of Vladimir Putin’s birthday
Pro-Ukrainian hackers have delivered an unwelcome birthday message for President Vladimir Putin after an “unprecedented” cyberattack hit Russia’s state broadcaster VGTRK, which was taken offline by the incident.
Some reports claim that Russian legal systems have also been affected and court documents and decisions have been wiped out.
VGTRK confirmed that ‘no significant damage’ was suffered in the attack, but the disruption caused appears to be significant: VGTRK servers have been offline for an extended period of time and some reports suggest that the media organization’s servers and backups have been wiped.
A proxy war
It is not yet clear who was behind the attack, but pro-Ukrainian hacking group Sudo rm-RF has apparently taken credit. tweeting a happy birthday message to President Putin with screenshots of the compromised systems.
“Who is behind a specific attack will be determined by the competent authorities and departments, but we understand that when the collective West says it wants to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, this also includes an attack on the media,” said Maria Zakharova . , spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The campaign represents a major propaganda victory for Ukraine, which was on the receiving end of a massive 123% jump in Russian cyberattacks in the first half of 2023, and whose critical infrastructure has seen a massive influx of cybersecurity incidents since the start of the crisis had to process. war.
In conjunction with the ground invasion, Russia deployed its military intelligence units to carry out a series of critical infrastructure attacks to weaken Ukrainian services and damage morale.
Both sides have conducted successful cyber operations as the digital arena continues to play an important role in the conflict.
Ukraine’s largest mobile network was taken offline in 2023, apparently by Russian threat actors, leaving millions of people without internet or the ability to make phone calls. In retaliation, a Ukrainian-backed hacking group took down the Moscow-based M9 telecom company.