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How is Anonymous attacking Russia? Disabling and hacking websites

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Anonymous is the online hacking group or “hacktivist”, whose members often hide their identities using Guy Fawkes masks. They claim responsibility for disrupting Russian- and Belarusian-backed sites.

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Anonymous seems to be waging cyber war on the Ukraine-Russian Conflict by declaring itself at cyber war President Vladimir PutinThe Russian government.

A Twitter message from after Russia invaded Ukraine an account named “Anonymous”  — with 7.4 million followers and nearly 190,000 Tweets — summoned hackers around the world to target Russia.

A post from the account on Feb. 24 stated the loosely connected global group was gearing up for action against the country — “and we will be retweeting their endeavors,” it said.

The account posted claims of responsibility in the following days for the disabling of websites belonging to Gazprom (Russia’s oil giant), the Russian state-controlled news agency RT and many other Russian and Belarusian government offices, including the Kremlin’s website.

Russia could be dropping bombs on innocent citizens, but Anonymous uses lasers for the destruction of Russian government websites.

Send a message via an Anonymous Twitter account

Subsequent posts were credited with disrupting Russian Internet Service Providers, leaked emails and documents from the Belarusian weapon maker Tetraedr and closing down an gas supply by Tvingo Telecom, Russian telecommunications company.

Last week’s tweet by the account holder summarized group intentions. It stated: “Anonymous continues operations to keep.ru’s government website offline. We also push information to Russians so that they don’t have to be subject to Putin’s statecensorship machine.” Also, we have ongoing operations that keep the Ukrainian citizens online as best possible.

Anonymous has been using lasers in Russia to eliminate Russian government websites. This is what a February 26th post stated.

Official accounts are not available

Despite the account’s large following, the person — or persons — behind the “Anonymous” Twitter account denied that it is the group’s official account, stating in a post: “We are a decentralized resistance movement. No official #Anonymous account exists.

Although it seems to be the biggest, this account is just one of several Twitter accounts that claim to operate under Anonymous-affiliated accounts.

It is often difficult to support the claims of the group, or even impossible because anonymity is an important tenet.

A review of a website that checks server outages confirmed that many of the websites that the group claimed to have knocked down are currently — or were recently — disabled. 

A RT article published Feb. 28 stated that Anonymous had shut down its website and that it was also closing the Kremlin’s. According to the article, Anonymous had also targeted Russian and Belarusian media outlets last Monday by replacing their main pages in the text “Stop fighting.”

A global coalescence

Attracting the ire of online hackers is yet another example of how global players — from NATO powers and international businesses to everyday consumers — are using their leverage, big or small, to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

After Russian labels were removed, empty shelves in a section of the vodka aisle of a Pennsylvania liquor shop had to be filled.

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Cyber war on both sides

Russia has been suspected of engaging in cyber warfare with Ukraine. This week destructive “data wiping” software hit Ukrainian governmental agencies and financial institutionsAccording to Reuters, it is. Russian involvement was denied by the news agency.

According to Reuters reports, many websites belonging to Ukraine’s government sites were attacked by “DDoS” attacks last week. According to Reuters, Ukraine was the victim of digital attacks ever since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.  

Last week, the Anonymous Twitter account reiterated its position that it isn’t at war with Russia in general or any of its citizens.

The identities behind Anonymous remain largely unidentified. A pinned message on the “Anonymous” Twitter account states that they are “working class people seeking a better future for humanity … who agree on a few basic principles: freedom of information, freedom of speech, accountability for companies and governments, privacy and anonymity for private citizens.”

Anonymous targeted high-profile organizations in the past such as China’s government and the Church of Scientology. They also expressed support for popular uprisings like the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street.

 

 

 



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