Which Russian companies has Anonymous attacked and what data has it leaked?
The renowned hacker group has made the Russian's their main target after the invasion after years in which the group's profile has diminished.
Though western nations have not sent combat troops to fight Russia in Ukraine, that has not stopped a mobilisation of support for the Ukrainian army. Volunteers have joined up to repel the Russians and hacker group Anonymous, who have been largely sidelined in the last few years, have returned to put pressure on the Russian establishment. Since the end of February, the group has been carrying out what it calls 'cyber operations' against Russia. These attacks have hit businesses and functions of the Russian government.
What has been targeted?
One of the initial attacks from the group was to take down the website of RT, formerly known as Russia Today, as the channel was accused of hosting biased pro-Russia stories as it is state-owned. In a similar vein, Russian and Belarusian TV channels were hacked to show unfiltered news as well as pro-Ukrainian messages with this message on screen:
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.
Other hacks include 400 security cameras in Russia.
Possibly the most audacious hack so far is the Central Bank of Russia on March 26. Around 28gb of data was taken from the organisation. This included data on transfers, clients, and supposed high-profile people who had been using the bank. The latest hack is the release of 112gb of data from MashOil and RostProekt, two mining and construction companies. The files were released to DDoSecrets.
What other businesses have been targeted?
Though Russian businesses and military targets have been claimed to have been hacked, businesses from the west that have continued to operate in Russia have come under the gaze of Anonymous.
The group published a threat to their Twitter account calling out 40 western businesses that are still dealing in Russia. One of these, Nestlé, was initially thought to be hacked by Anonymous last week, but has since declared that the leaked data was released by Nestlé by accident.