Latest war development: Anonymous hacker launches cyberwar against Russia, claims taking down govt website

Russia-Ukraine war perhaps has a new player now – the Anonymous hacker. Amidst Russia’s offensive against Ukraine, Anonymous hackers have claimed to have taken down several Russian government websites including the RT.com, the website of the state-controlled television network.

The hacker announced on Twitter yesterday, stating that they’re engaged in a ‘cyber war’ against the Russian government.

The official websites of the Russian government, the Kremlin, Duma, and the Ministry of Defence were either taken down by Anonymous or were slowed down.

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.

Various Anonymous accounts were found using the #OpRussia and #OpKremlin hashtags on Twitter, similar to the #OpISIS campaign that was launched earlier in an attempt to take down the terrorist organisation’s online propaganda attempts.

Microsoft said in a blog post that “The malware, which is designed to look like ransomware but lacking a ransom recovery mechanism, is intended to be destructive and designed to render targeted devices inoperable rather than to obtain a ransom,”.

Cyberattacks have become one of the core routes in modern warfare, which can prove to be dangerous and has the potential to take down a country’s industrial infrastructure.