For Putin's Birthday, Ukraine Hackers Take Down Russian TV, Courts 2 Days In Row

Just to let him know they're thinking of him...and because they can, with no one stopping them. JL

Robyn Dixon reports in the Washington Post:

Russia suffered major digital outages for a second day Tuesday after hackers targeted Russia’s court information system, taking down court websites and claiming to have wiped court documents and decisions in the system’s database. The hackers posted a message with an obscenity declaring the attack was to mark President Vladimir Putin’s 72nd birthday Monday, the same day a massive attack on Russia’s online state media channels occurred. That attack took down Russian state television stations Rossiya-1, Rossiya-24, Rossiya Kultura, Karusel and around 80 regional television and radio stations. 

Russia suffered major digital outages for a second day Tuesday after hackers targeted Russia’s court information system, taking down court websites and claiming to have wiped court documents and decisions in the system’s database.

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 Monday, the same day a massive 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.”

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 that 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 resumed Tuesday. The court websites remained unavailable, however.

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Cyberattacks are increasingly used by both sides in the Ukraine war, although this week’s attack was unusual in its extent.

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 Tuesday due to the attack.

The Pskov region court system confirmed the outage Tuesday: “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 last December on the main mobile operator Kyivstar that paralyzed the service for several days, 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 Center 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 percent 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 percent.

 

Last month, U.S. 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 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 Monday 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 honor 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.”