Anonymous Hackers Aim To Undermine Russia

Soon after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Anonymous declared a cyber war on Russia and now the hacktivist collective has been bombarding Russia with cyber attacks on President Vladimir Putin in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine.

The hacktivist collective has claimed responsibility for disabling government, corporate, and news websites and says it has taken down Russian websites and stolen government data.

One such incident was captured in a short video clip which shows normal programming interrupted with images of bombs exploding in Ukraine and soldiers talking about the horrors of the conflict. The exploit has the various hallmarks of an Anonymous hack, id dramatic, impactful and easy to share online and, like many of the group's other cyber attacks, it is extremely hard to verify. 

Hackers have mostly been using DDoS attacks, where a server is overwhelmed by a flood of requests.The hackers have justified their actions saying innocent Ukrainians were being massacred. 

Who Are Anonymous?

• The hacktivist collective first emerged in 2003 from the website 4chan.

• The group has no leadership, its motto is "We are legion".

• Anyone can claim to be a part of the group and hack for any cause they want, but they generally they attack organisations accused of misusing power

• Their symbol is a Guy Fawkes mask, made famous by Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta in which an anarchist revolutionary topples a corrupt fascist government.

• The group has many social media accounts, with 15.5 million followers on its Twitter pages alone

Anonymous hackers have also defaced Russian websites, which involves gaining control of a website to change the content displayed. So far, the attacks have caused disruption and embarrassment, but cyber-experts have become increasingly concerned by the explosion of hacktivism since the invasion. They are legitimate concerns that that an Anonymous hacker might knock out a hospital's computer network or interrupt critical communication links accidentally.

Anonymous has not been this active in years. One example of a new recruit is  'Roman', is a Ukrainian tech entrepreneur who heads a group of hackers called 'Stand for Ukraine', had no links with the organisation until Russia invaded his country. Another group that has merged with Anonymous is a Polish hacking team called Squad 303, named after a famous Polish Royal Air Force fighter squadron in World War Two.

There have been three major waves of co-ordinated DDoS attacks against Ukraine since January, plus three incidents of more serious "wiper" attacks that deleted data on a small number of Ukrainian computer systems.

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