This week, a Twitter account claiming to be affiliated with nebulous hacking group Anonymous stated that it had hacked Russia’s central bank and planned to disclose 35,000 papers exposing “secret agreements” over the following 48 hours.
In a video released shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine a month ago, the hackers’ group declared cyberwar on Russian President Vladimir Putin. In late February, Anonymous declared in a video on Twitter: “Soon you will feel the wrath of the world’s hackers.”
So far, the organisation claims to have followed through on its threat. Hackers belonging to Anonymous said they hacked Russian state TV networks and momentarily halted programming to show footage of Ukrainian buildings being attacked in an interview with the BBC earlier this week.
The Russian government maintains tight control over the country’s media, while Putin passed a law earlier this month that makes reporting that contradicts the government’s official stance on the Ukraine conflict illegal.
While Western countries have increased sanctions against Russia in an attempt to cut it off from international trade and the international banking system after Putin launched the war against Ukraine, Anonymous has adopted a more unconventional approach towards the country.
It threatened any organisation that had not halted operations with Russia while tweeting, “We once again call on companies that continue to operate in Russia: Immediately stop your activity in Russia if you feel sorry for the innocent people who are being massacred violently in Ukraine. Your time is running out. We do not forgive. We do not forget.”
The tweet also added several logos of companies such as Acer, Lenovo, Emirates, and AstraZeneca.
However, the Twitter handle retweeted a post claiming the Central Bank Of Russia has been hacked and it attached some screenshots of documents.
But soon the bank’s press department told Russian news agency TASS that information concerning a probable hacking attack on any of the regulator’s systems is false.
However, earlier this month the members of the group also offered Russian forces $52,000 in Bitcoin if they abandoned their tanks on the battlefield.
As the conflict in Ukraine drags on, the fight is increasingly being waged online.
Squad 303 was a gang of Polish hackers that created a website that allowed individuals to send text messages to random Russian phone numbers informing them of what was going on in Ukraine.
According to reports, the group has claimed that more than 20 million SMS and WhatsApp messages have been sent using the service.
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