By James Simons
Anonymous has vowed to continue hacking Russia until the country ends its ‘aggression’ against Ukraine.
The hacking collective has been very critical of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, having launched a number of cyber attacks on the country in retaliation, including a data leak of Russian soldiers and takeovers of state-controlled television.
Anonymous said it doesn’t plan on stopping its efforts anytime soon, saying it won’t cease until Russia does. “The hacking will continue until Russia stops their aggression.”
In a recent tweet, Anonymous said it will continue hacking and releasing confidential information. The declaration came after recent reports of Russia’s brutality in Ukraine.
On 24 February, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Anonymous announced it was ‘officially in cyber war against the Russian government’. Since then, the collective has been involved in various hacking attacks, in a bid to help spread information about what Russia still says is a ‘special military operation’.
Earlier this month, it emerged that the group had leaked the personal data of 120,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, disclosing personal information such as names, date of birth, addresses, unit affiliation and passport numbers. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the collective has leaked the data of 120,000 Russian soldiers. It also took over state-controlled television to show the real devastation in Ukraine.
It also retweeted the S&P report that Russia had defaulted on its foreign debt by offering to pay in rubles
“All soldiers participating in the invasion of Ukraine should be subjected to a war crime tribunal,” the hacktivist collective said on Twitter.
Anonymous then claimed to have hacked into unsecured printers across Russia in order to print out ‘anti-propaganda’ messages about the Ukrainian invasion.
A member of the collective team who goes by @DepaixPorteur on Twitter, tweeted: “We have been printing anti-propaganda and tor installation instructions to printers all over [Russia] for 2 hours, and printed 100,000+ copies so far. 15 people working on this op as we speak.
Since the Ukraine invasion began in February, Anonymous has led a cyber war against Russia, claiming it successfully hacked into government and bank records.
The hacking collective #Anonymous today hacked into the Russian streaming services Wink and Ivi (like Netflix) and live TV channels Russia 24, Channel One, Moscow 24 to broadcast war footage from #Ukraine. #TangoDown #OpRussia.
The stated purpose of the hacking was to counteract Putin’s regime’s hold on allowing a free press accurately report the events of the war.