(Image via thehackernews.com)
Staff Writer: Akshit Bagga
Email: abagga@umassd.edu
Ukraine-based hackers targeted Russia’s media company VGTRK in a large-scale cyber-attack, disrupting television broadcasts and radio streaming services on October 7, the day of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 72nd birthday.
In an unprecedented attack during the evening hours on October 7, a chain of cyber hacks affected the services and websites of VGTRK, or the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. Several television broadcasts were impacted for at least an hour, some cutting off mid-way before operations resumed.
VGTRK is the biggest media provider in the country. It owns and operates several television stations, two different international networks, five radio stations, and at least 80 regional TV and radio connection networks. At least 20 services in this large television network were impacted due to the attack.
VGTRK’s website was unavailable earlier in the day, and its Rossiya-24, a 24-hour news rolling channel, was also affected. Availability of several television channels, including Russia 1 and Russia 24, were affected due to this cyberattack.
According to reports from Reuters, error messages saying “503 Service Unavailable. No server is available to handle this request” were displayed on the home page of the company’s website.
A 503 error message is usually displayed when the servers are either out for maintenance, overloaded with browsing requests from the internet, or have run into a faulty firewall configuration.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson from the Kremlin, commented on the incident: “Our state media holding, one of the largest, has faced an unprecedented hacker attack on its digital infrastructure.”
He added, “Specialists are working to find out all the circumstances, to understand where the traces left behind by those who organized this hacker attack on the critical infrastructure object lead.”
Sources from the Ukrainian government said that Ukrainian hackers were responsible for this attack. The attack comes on the day Russian President Vladimir Putin was celebrating his 72nd birthday.
As mentioned in an article from Reuters, an unnamed source said, “Ukrainian hackers ‘congratulated’ Putin on his birthday by carrying out a large-scale attack on the all-Russian state television and radio broadcasting company.”
A pro-Ukraine hacking group, which goes by the name “Sudo rm-RF,” has claimed responsibility for the attack on Russia’s digital infrastructure. Russia has launched investigations into this cyber-attack and has termed it an “anti-Russia agenda of the West.”
While a clear assessment of the digital damage couldn’t be made, Russian media outlet Gazeta.ru has reported that all data, including backups, were wiped out from the company’s servers. It also serves to mention that this hacking event comes amid an ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.
Russia and Ukraine have been in an active war since February 2022.
The conflict started with Russia invading Ukrainian territories, converting to a full-scale war, resulting in people evacuating from Ukraine, civilian casualties, and thousands of military personnel dying and getting wounded on both sides. As of 2024, long-range missile and drone strikes are being carried out by both countries, impacting lives.
While the war on land intensifies, digital attacks are being carried out by either of the countries to exploit vulnerabilities. As per a report published last month by Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP), at least 1,739 incidents were reported during the first half of 2024.
Weighing these attacks on the vulnerability scale, at least forty-eight were critical, while 1600 attacks had a medium severity level.
Yevheniya Nakonechna, the head of SSSCIP, said, “In 2024, we observe a pivot in their focus towards anything directly connected to the theater of war and attacks on service provider — aimed at maintaining a low profile, sustaining a presence in systems related to war and politics.”
Yevheniya added, “Hackers are no longer just exploiting vulnerabilities wherever they can but are now targeting areas critical to the success and support of their military operations.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry has announced that it will discuss the recent cyberattack in international forums such as UNESCO.