The hacktivist group Anonymous claims to have already published millions of leaked Russian emails. The group is waging a cyber war against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, attacking government agencies, state television stations, and the central bank.
Russia’s Ministry of Culture has become Anonymous’ latest target
Anonymous has published more than two million emails from cyberattacks on Russian organizations, the decentralized hacker group announced via social media. “This is just the beginning,” the Anonymous TV affiliated account said in a message posted on Twitter last Sunday.
#OpRussia: Since declaring ‘cyber war’ on Kremlin’s criminal regime, #Anonymous has released over 2 million Russian emails via #DDoSecrets and this is just the beginning. In the coming days #Anonymous collective will release other data related to Russian entities. #FreeUkraine pic.twitter.com/f1povI6uF1
— Anonymous TV 🇺🇦 (@YourAnonTV) April 10, 2022
The Anonymous tweet also promised to release other appropriated data belonging to Russian organizations. Making good on its promise, the group said Monday that it had leaked nearly 600,000 new emails from three Russian datasets.
This batch contains more than 200,000 emails (446 GB) from the Russian Culture Ministry. According to the hackers, censorship is among the main duties of the department, which is charged with carrying out the state policy in the field of art and taking care of the archives.
Anonymous also published 230,000 emails (150 GB) from the Blagoveshchensk city administration sent over the past three years, as well as 130,000 emails (116 GB) from the governor of the Tver region and his staff over the past five years.
Shortly after Moscow launched a military attack on Ukraine in the early morning hours of February 24, the group Anonymous vowed to disrupt the Russian Internet space. Later, the Kremlin, State Duma, and Defense Ministry websites were attacked.
The group also threatened to hack Russian state TV channels “to broadcast the truth about what is happening in Ukraine.” The government-funded international network Russia Today (RT) suffered a massive DDoS attack. Then the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company was also attacked by NB65, an Anonymous affiliate.
In late March, the hacktivist collective released 28 GB of data obtained from the Central Bank of Russia (the Central Bank of Russia). The leaked documents, more than 35,000 files, allegedly contained some “secret agreements” of the monetary authority. Anonymous also allegedly destroyed the websites of foreign companies that continue to operate in Russia.
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