Global Hacking Group ‘Anonymous’ Declares Cyberwar Against Russia

A Twitter handle named ‘Anonymous’ has declared a cyberwar against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government. Having the username, ‘@YourAnonOne’ has even claimed responsibility for hacking the Russian Military’s website and state media’s website Russia Today as well.

The account tweeted,

 “The Anonymous collective is officially in cyberwar against the Russian government.” Since the date of declaration of a ‘Cyberwar’ against the Russian government, the group has claimed responsibility for several websites linked with the Russian government. Some of them are accessible and some are yet not retrieved.

NetBlocks, an observatory reporting about network disruptions and shutdowns, had confirmed the troubleshoot in several websites linked with the Russian Government through tweets. It had posted, “Various #Russia government websites including the Kremlin, State Duma and Ministry of Defense are again down, with real-time network data showing impact to FSO networks consistent with previous cyberattacks.” The post by NetBlocks had linked the disruptions with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The websites faced the targets under a broad denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

Anonymous is said to be having this war in response to the Russian invasion against Ukraine that has led to the eruption of war between both countries. The group made the claims through a series of tweets. The war until now has claimed more than two thousand lives of civilians in Ukraine, as claimed by the Ukrainian Government.

The group’s other Twitter handle with username, @YourAnonNews has 7.7 Million followers had specified the reason for it being involved in this cyber warfare. It tweeted,

“Anonymous activists have been engaged in a cyber warfare campaign against Putin & his allies. We, as activists, will not sit idle as Russian forces kill and murder innocent people trying to defend their homeland.”

The hacking group, which has over 1.3 million followers on Twitter, keeps on posting its updates of hacking several Russian-Government affiliated Twitter handle and has multiple accounts on Twitter for doing so. After allegedly having access to the website of the Russian military, the group had tweeted, “The #Anonymous collective has leaked the database of the Russian Ministry of Defense website. “

Underlining its intentions, the group tweeted that it is working to keep the Russian Government websites offline and push information in order to make Russians aware of their Government’s actions.

The tweet reads,

“Anonymous has ongoing operations to keep .ru government websites offline, and to push information to the Russian people so they can be free of Putin’s state censorship machine. We also have ongoing operations to keep the Ukrainian people online as best we can.”

Another tweet from 26 February reads, “Russia may be using bombs to drop on innocent people, but Anonymous uses lasers to kill Russian government websites.”

Meanwhile, Russia also seems to be carrying out its own set of cyberattacks on Ukraine that had resulted in denial of service attacks, shutting down governmental websites and data-wiping software in hundreds of computers in Ukraine. Though, Russia has denied its involvement in any such cyber attacks.

Who is ‘Anonymous’?

Formed in the year 2003, the group which identifies itself as ‘Anonymous’ is a decentralized international activist- and hacktivist collective and movement that has carried out several cyberattacks against Governments, Governmental institutions, agencies including CIA the, corporations, and the Church of Scientology.

The previous targets of the group include Gene Simmons and Hustler magazine, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The group posts its claims and activities related to hacking through its Twitter and YouTube accounts which are not yet official.