Anonymous Hackers Successfully Hack Russian Government Websites

Anonymous, a decentralized international hacker collective, has carried out another attack against Russia, this time hacking government websites and a local radio group.

In a series of posts on Twitter over the weekend, Anonymous announced that it has successfully hacked several Russian websites, including news outlet Pravdapskov, the Ministry of Construction of Russia and MegaFon — the second-largest mobile phone operator and third-largest telecom operator in the country. As of writing, all three websites remain inaccessible.

The hacking collective also launched a cyber attack against the Vyberi Radio group, which operates 100 radio stations across 18 Russian cities. Anonymous published more than 1.5 million emails taken from the radio group on DDoSecrets.

Anonymous first promised to launch a cyber war against the Kremlin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. The group also hacked the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR) on Sunday. The bank’s main responsibility is to ensure the stability of the Russian ruble.

The cyber attack gave Anonymous control over the “Russian software system” used to run CBR. The group also leaked confidential data belonging to the bank, which included “secret agreements.”

In May, the hacking collective also targeted Rosatom, Russia’s state-run nuclear energy behemoth. The attack gave Anonymous access to more than 800,000 documents, which included information about the company’s affiliates and clients. The group leaked a total of 5.63 GB of data from Rosatom.

The May attack was the second time in less than three months that Anonymous successfully breached Rosatom. In March, the hacking collective leaked 15.3 GB of data from the company. The data included an email address hosted on free encrypted mail provider ProtonMail as well as the personal information and passport details of the nuclear energy company’s customers.

In February, Anonymous also hacked Tetraedr, a Belarus-based weapons manufacturer. The attack gave Anonymous access to over 200 GB of emails, PDF schematics for weapons systems and brochures for armored vehicles, which were later published on DDoSecrets. Russia is Belarus’ largest economic partner. Belarus has also allied itself with Russia amid the war in Ukraine.