Less than a week after announcing a cyber offensive against Russia, Anonymous has attacked over 300 Russian targets. So far, the targets have included government sites, state-run businesses, oil companies, gas stations, TV broadcasters, and more.
Anonymous members call this campaign ‘#OpRussia.’ Since Anonymous isn’t a single, organized entity, there are hundreds of hacktivists from around the globe who are participating in this operation in the name of Anonymous, which is why the number of attacks is so high for such a short time.
Some of the more notable attacks so far have included the takedown of the Chechen government’s website after the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, announced his support for Putin, deploying Chechen troops to Ukraine.
Other Anonymous members claimed to have breached Russian TV broadcasts to air non-propaganda news from Ukraine. In one instance, a broadcast was hacked to play the Ukrainian national anthem.
In a press release posted on Saturday, members of the collective confirmed that “these actions will continue.” They then urged Russian soldiers to “lay down your weapons and just walk away. Putin’s crimes do not have to be your crimes”.
It appears that a major focus in the Anonymous fight against the Russian government isn’t solely to disrupt its operations but also to educate the Russian public that has been told a very different story about the situation in Ukraine.
To achieve this, Anonymous is also trying to call out the general public, asking them to flood Russian restaurants and other businesses with Google “reviews” that share news about what’s happening in Ukraine. This would help educate the Russian public about what’s going on instead of relying on state-run media for information.
Anonymous has joined an already-emerging Ukrainian ‘IT army’, as Vice President Mykhailo Fedorov calls it, that has been tasked to disrupt Russian operations during this invasion.
Western organizations and businesses are urged to bolster their cyber defenses in fear of Russian retaliation for these attacks. Russia is known to have a strong cybercrime network, with many notorious groups operating out of that nation.
Any Ukraine-based company for the next 6 months can get entirely free access to SecurityScorecard’s enterprise license to protect themselves from malware resilience in light of ongoing cyber-attacks. We are also providing them free access to SecurityScorecard forensics remediation team to deal with ransomware issues or to recover from any outage. Simply email Ukraine@securityscorecard.io
Our Threat Research & Intelligence team has been analyzing the scope, impact, and attribution of cyber-attacks involving both Russia and Ukraine. We are partnering with U.S. authorities to further aid their efforts.
References:
- Anonymous declares war against Russia: starting a cyber war – AS.com
- What are Anonymous actually doing to help Ukraine? | Dazed (dazeddigital.com)
- Anonymous Calls For Fake Google Reviews Of Russian Restaurants To Tell Citizens About Ukraine Invasion (ladbible.com)
