Russian news agency TASS was hacked this morning to display anti-war statements, including calls to stop President Putin's invasion of Ukraine, while its English version is still inaccessible at the time of writing.
According to Reuters and social media pictures, the regular site displayed this message: "We urge you to stop this madness, do not send your sons and husbands to certain death. Putin is forcing us to lie and is putting us in danger... It's not our war, let's stop him!"
Other Russian news media websites, including Kommersant and Izvestia, also read: "Putin makes us lie and puts us in danger. What is it for us? To put Putin in the textbooks? This is not our war, let's stop it!"
The Anonymous Logo was displayed beneath the message, indicating they are behind the cyber attack. The group claimed credit for several cyber attacks including distributed denial of service (DDoS), where a site is flooded with traffic and rendered unreachable - bringing down government websites and Russia Today. As of Monday, the official sites for the Kremlin and Ministry of Defence are still inaccessible, reports The Express.
Anonymous claimed they hacked the MoD database and Russian state TV channels to display pro-Ukraine content on Sunday.
Jamie Collier, a consultant at US cybersecurity firm Mandiant, told the Guardian: "It can be difficult to directly tie this activity to Anonymous, as targeted entities will likely be reluctant to publish related technical data. However, the Anonymous collective has a track record of conducting this sort of activity and it is very much in line with their capabilities.”
Russia Today blamed Anonymous, claiming the attacks came from the US after the group published its "declaration of war". A spokesperson for the channel said: "After the statement by Anonymous, RT’s websites became the subject of massive DDoS attacks from some 100 million devices, mostly based in the US."
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