Ukraine Hackers Disrupt Russian Broadcaster On Putin’s Birthday

Matthew Broersma,
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A tank on a street in Kyiv, Ukraine, in January 2024. Image credit: Unsplash

Ukrainian hackers disrupt online services of Russian state broadcaster VGTRK on Vladimir Putin’s birthday, amidst ongoing conflict

Ukrainian hackers temporarily disabled Russian state television and radio online broadcasting services on Monday, a date coinciding with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s 72nd birthday.

The attack affected state broadcaster VGTRK and disrupted internal services such as telephones as well as the online streaming services of prominent television and radio channels including Russia-1 and Russia-24.

The Kultura channel and radio stations including Vesti FM and Mayak were also affected, according to the state Tass news agency.

At least 20 Russian broadcasters were affected by the hack, said a Ukrainian official with knowledge of the matter.

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‘Critical infrastructure’

Government spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said specialists were making “colossal efforts” to mitigate the attack and were working to determine who was behind the incident affecting the “critical infrastructure facility”.

Ukrainian-linked hacking group “sudo rm -RF” claimed responsibility for the attack, according to local news outlets including state-owned Gazeta.ru.

The group’s name is a reference to a Unix or Linux command used to delete files and directories indiscriminately and without warning.

VGTRK acknowledge it had been hacked but said “no significant damage was caused” to its operations.

It said “everything is operating normally” again and that its specialists were “working to eliminate the consequences of this malicious interference”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russian media had become targets for the “collective West”.

She said Russia would raise the issue in all international forums including Unesco, the UN agency that promotes freedom of speech.

Birthday attack

The government of Ukraine, which is engaged in an ongoing war following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, declined to comment on the hack.

However, a Ukrainian law enforcement official familiar with the matter agreed to provide details after being granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

“Ukrainian hackers congratulated Putin on his birthday by carrying out a large-scale attack on the all-Russian state television and radio broadcasting company,” the official said.

“Employees complained that all information on the servers has been destroyed, even backup copies, online broadcasting and internal services do not work, there is no internet and telephone connection,” the person added.

The official’s claims could not be verified.