Anonymous’, the hackers’ collective, declared a cyberwar against Russia in support of Ukraine on February 25. As per a Business Insider report, the hacktivists took down or slowed Russian government websites including those of the Kremlin, Duma, and the Ministry of Defence. while on Sunday it was claimed the group had hacked Russian State TV channels, posting pro -Ukraine content including patriotic songs and images from the invasion.
JUST IN: #Russian state TV channels have been hacked by #Anonymous to broadcast the truth about what happens in #Ukraine. #OpRussia #OpKremlin #FckPutin #StandWithUkriane pic.twitter.com/vBq8pQnjPc
— Anonymous TV 🇺🇦 (@YourAnonTV) February 26, 2022
Most of the websites have reportedly recovered now. ‘Anonymous’ had announced their initiative on Twitter yesterday, writing, “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 (sic) Expect us,"
among their tweets.#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 (con)
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 24, 2022
Ukrainian websites were hit with DDoS attacks ahead of the offensive, including the Ukrainian defense ministry and PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest commercial bank, but there has been nothing on the scale of the Notpetya Assault in 2017 – when a devastating malware attack attributed to Russia destroyed computers in Ukraine and around the world. Cloudflare, a US tech firm that protects companies against DDoS attacks, described the initial denial of service sorties last week as “relatively modest”. The UK and US governments have already blamed an earlier set of DDoS attacks against Ukrainian websites, on 15 and 16 February, on Moscow.
As with the attacks claimed by Anonymous, DDoS salvos are designed to sow confusion and damage morale, whereas malware can cause serious and irreparable damage. NotPetya, a so-called wiper virus that was inserted into tax accounting software used by Ukrainian firms but spilled into other countries, caused $10bn (£7.5bn) of damage worldwide by encrypting computers permanently.
Last week Ukraine was hit by an attempted wiper attacks, via a new strain of malware dubbed HermeticWiper that prevented computers from rebooting. However, the scale of the attack left only several hundred machines affected and its geographic reach beyond Ukraine has been limited to Latvia and Lithuania.
There have been digital clashes somewhere else in the contention. Incomplete limitations have been forced on Facebook by the Russian government after authorities blamed the informal community for editing state-upheld media on the stage, inciting Facebook to forbid promotions from Russian state media. Google's YouTube stage has likewise prohibited state media adverts. Another US tech titan, Elon Musk, is giving satellite web admittance to Ukraine by means of his Starlink satellites, while the Ukrainian government is straightforwardly looking for global gifts in digital currency and has apparently gotten large number of dollars accordingly.
Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT.
— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) February 26, 2022
BTC - 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P
ETH and USDT (ERC-20) - 0x165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14
In any case, the digital aspect to the Ukraine struggle has been calm so far. Ciaran Martin, teacher of training at the Blavatnik school of government at Oxford University and previous top of the UK's National Cyber Security Center, says digital has played "surprisingly little part" in the contention, up to this point.
"The digital movement from Russia against Ukraine has been there, yet is steady with Russia's digital provocation of the nation returning years. Also, from what we can see, the reaction against Russia from the west has not had a solid digital part up until this point - it has been regarding tough approvals. All of this could change, and the west is on the whole correct to stay fully on guard for expanded digital movement."
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