[BreachExchange] Hacker collective Anonymous declares 'cyber war' against Russia, disables state news website

[Terrell Byrd]

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/hacker-collective-anonymous-declares-cyber-war-against-russia-disables-state-news-website/ar-AAUh7QA

Hacker collective Anonymous has disabled several Russian government
websites including the state-controlled "Russia Today" news service.

Hackers identifying with the Anonymous collective announced they had
launched cyber operations that briefly took down RT.com, as well as the
websites of the Kremlin, the Russian government and the Russian defence
ministry websites.

RT.com confirmed the attack took place, saying it slowed some websites down
while taking others offline for "extended periods of time".

RT's coverage of the situation in Ukraine has been overwhelmingly from a
pro-Russian perspective, showing fireworks and cheerful celebrations in the
newly occupied territories.

In the UK, MPs have said the TV channel is Russian President Vladimir
Putin's "personal propaganda tool" and should be banned.

DDoS attacks flood websites with traffic
Internet security expert Robert Potter said the distributed
denial-of-service (DDoS) attack involved multiple systems flooding a
targeted website, so that no other traffic could get through.

"It's like trying to run five people through a door at the same time," he
said.

DDoS attacks are considered easy to mount and easy to defend against.

One simple measure is to switch off foreign traffic to a website, which
could explain why it currently appears to be easier to access RT.com from
inside Russia than outside.

"DDoS is rarely more than inconvenient," Mr Potter said.

"If you're knocking Amazon off with a DDoS they lose millions a minute, but
for the news website of the Russian propaganda agency, it's not such a big
deal."

But Mr Potter says we're likely to see more Anonymous "cyber activism".

Anonymous is a decentralised collective without hierarchy or leadership and
has been known to take on a wide range of issues, with previous attacks
targeting the CIA, Islamic State and the Church of Scientology.

An Anonymous video posted on February 15 threatened to take Russia's
industrial control systems "hostage" if the Ukraine crisis escalated.

"There's a real risk of country-versus-country cyber warfare leading to an
escalation," Mr Potter said.

"Any cyber activity that's conceptually anonymous and deniable is more
likely to be successful as it won't escalate things between countries."

Escalation includes the possibility of a Russian cyber attack on the US.

In January, a US government intelligence brief warned that Russia "would
consider" a potentially devastating cyber attack against the US if NATO
intervened to defend Ukraine.

Security experts have also warned Russian-linked criminal gangs may be
encouraged to target Australia with cyber attacks.

Earlier this week, Russian cyber forces mounted DDoS attacks on the
websites of several Ukrainian banks and government departments.

The government of Ukraine has asked volunteers from the "hacker
underground" to help protect critical infrastructure and spy on Russian
troops.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.riskbasedsecurity.com/pipermail/breachexchange/attachments/20220225/a605658a/attachment.html>