Hackers from the Anonymous Group have hacked the websites of the Kremlin, the Foreign Ministry, RT News, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia and the Ministry of Defense.
Some of the websites that were either taken down by Anonymous or were slowed down include those of the Russian government, the Kremlin, Duma and the Ministry of Defence.
Apart from RT.com, the hacker collective also launched distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against websites of Russian internet service providers Com2Com, Relcom, Sovam Teleport and PTT-Teleport Moscow.
“#Anonymous is currently involved in operations against the Russian Federation. Our operations are targeting the Russian government. There is an inevitability that the private sector will most likely be affected too. While this account cannot claim to speak for the whole of the Anonymous collective, we can in fact report the truths of Anonymous’ collective actions against the Russian Federation. We want the Russian people to understand that we know it’s hard for them to speak out against their dictator for fear of reprisals. We, as a collective want only peace in the world. We want a future for all of humanity. So, while people around the globe smash your internet providers to bits, understand that it’s entirely directed at the actions of the Russian government and Putin. Put yourselves in the shoes of the Ukrainians being bombed right now. Together we can change the world, we can stand up against anything. It is time for the Russian people to stand together and say “NO” to Vladimir Putin’s war. We are Anonymous. We are Legion”, the group said in a Twitter post.
This development comes hours after the Ukrainian government had accused Russia of bringing down its government websites. The State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine said that its government websites and banks have been hit with cyber attacks.
“Today, websites of a number of government and banking institutions have undergone a massive DDoS attack again. Some of the attacked information systems are not available or work intermittently. This is due to switching traffic to another provider to minimize damage. Other websites effectively resist the attack and work normally,” the government institution said.
