The online hacker activist or “hacktivist” group Anonymous, whose supporters often disguise their identities in Guy Fawkes masks, has claimed responsibility for disruptions to Russian and Belarusian-run websites.
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The murky online group, known as Anonymous, appears to be entering the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, declaring that it is in a cyber war against President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a post on Twitter by account named “Anonymous” – with 7.4 million followers and nearly 190,000 tweets – called hackers around the world to target Russia.
A statement from the account on February 24 said that the weakly connected global group was preparing for action against the country – “and we will retouch their efforts,” it said.
In the days that followed, publications from the account claimed responsibility for the deactivation of websites owned by Russian oil giant Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian news agency RT and a number of Russian and Belarusian government agencies, including the Kremlin’s official website.
Russia can use bombs to drop innocent people, but Anonymous uses lasers to kill Russian government websites.
post via a Twitter account linked to Anonymous
Subsequent publications have credited Russian Internet service providers with leaking documents and emails from Belarusian arms maker Tetraedr and cutting off gas supplies provided by Russia’s telecommunications service Tvingo Telecom.
The account holder summed up the group’s intentions in a Twitter post last week, stating: “Anonymous has ongoing operations to keep the government’s .ru website offline and to send information to the Russian people so that they can be released from the state Putin’s censorship machine. We also have ongoing operations to keep the Ukrainian people online as best we can. “
“Russia can use bombs to drop innocent people, but Anonymous uses lasers to kill Russian government websites,” a February 26 post said.
No official account
Despite the large number of followers on the account, the person – or persons – behind the Anonymous Twitter account denied that it was the group’s official account, saying in a statement: “We are a decentralized resistance movement. There is no official #Anonymous account.
This is one of many Twitter accounts that claim to operate under the larger umbrella of Anonymous-related social media accounts, although it appears to be one of the largest.
Justifying the group’s claims is difficult, if not impossible, as anonymity is a key principle of the team.
A review of a website that checks for server outages confirmed that many of the websites the group claims to have crashed have now – or recently – been disabled.
An RT article published on February 28 confirmed that his own website, as well as the Kremlin’s, had in fact been shut down by Anonymous last Friday. The article also said the group targeted other Russian and Belarusian media on Monday, replacing their main pages with the message “Stop the War”.
Global coalescence
Attracting the wrath of online hackers is another example of how global players – from NATO forces and international business to ordinary consumers – are using their levers, big or small, to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Empty seats on the shelves of a vodka department at a Pennsylvania liquor store after Russian labels were removed.
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Bilateral cyber war
Russia is already believed to be involved in its own version of the cyber war with Ukraine. Last week, destructive software for “erasing data” hit Ukrainian government agencies and financial institutions, according to Reuters. The news agency said Russia denies any involvement.
Several of Ukraine’s government websites were shut down last week due to denial of service or “DDoS” attacks, Reuters reported. Ukraine has suffered digital attacks since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, it said.
A post from Anonymous’s Twitter account last week reiterated that the group is not at war with Russia as a whole or its people.
The identities of those behind Anonymous are largely unknown. A statement posted on Anonymous’s Twitter account states that they are working-class people looking for a better future for humanity… who agree on several basic principles: freedom of information, freedom of speech, responsibility for companies and governments , confidentiality and anonymity for private citizens’.
In the past, Anonymous has targeted other high-ranking organizations, including the United States and Chinese governments, the Church of Scientology and the Islamic State group, while supporting uprisings such as the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street.