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Cyber war intensifies: Kremlin website, Russian TV hacked to broadcast Ukrainian songs

Russian government websites, including the official page of Kremlin, appeared to be down after alleged cyberattacks on multiple state media websites

Russian government websites, including the official page of Kremlin, appeared to be down after alleged cyberattacks on multiple state media websites. According to Ukraine’s state telecommunications agency, as many as six Russian government sites were non-functional. Additionally, hackers used Russian TV channels to broadcast Ukrainian songs after the Russian media regulator’s site crashed.

The site displayed the message, "This Page Cannot Be Displayed. The system cannot communicate with the external server (government.ru). The internet server may be busy, may be permanently down, or may be unreachable because of network problems." While the cause of the outages was not immediately clear, the Internet hacking group Anonymous tweeted on Saturday morning, February 26, "#Anonymous is at war with Russia. Stay tuned."

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On Friday, February 25, the Russian websites appears to be down for several hours. However, the Kremlin denied that it had been attacked by Anonymous. Russian websites appeared to be on-and-offline ever since Russia invaded Ukraine.

This possible attack is being considered a tit-for-tat cyberattack as it comes after Kyiv was struck with a massive cyberattack on Wednesday, February 24. Its Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Cabinet of Ministers and Security Service sites were down following the attack.

Ukraine's government on Thursday, January 25, asked people from the nation’s hacker underground to volunteer and help safeguard infrastructure. It urged the volunteers to engage in cyber spying missions that targeted Russian troops. The same day, Anonymous said it was "currently involved in operations against the Russian Federation’ and that ‘our operations are targeting the Russian government."

"#Anonymous is currently involved in operations against the Russian Federation. Our operations are targeting the Russian government. There is an inevitability that the private sector will most likely be affected too. While this account cannot claim to speak for the whole of the Anonymous collective, we can in fact report the truths of Anonymous' collective actions against the Russian Federation. We want the Russian people to understand that we know it's hard for them to speak out against their dictator for fear of reprisals," Anonymous tweeted. 

"We, as a collective want only peace in the world. We want a future for all of humanity. So, while people around the globe smash your internet providers to bits, understand that it's entirely directed at the actions of the Russian government and Putin," the collective wrote, adding, "Put yourselves in the shoes of the Ukrainians being bombed right now. Together we can change the world, we can stand up against anything. It is time for the Russian people to stand together and say "NO" to Vladimir Putin's war. We are Anonymous. We are Legion Expect us."

Anonymous also tweeted on February 26, "Anonymous has ongoing operations to keep .ru government websites offline, and to push information to the Russian people so they can be free of Putin's state censorship machine. We also have ongoing operations to keep the Ukrainian people online as best we can."

In a chilling video message, a member of Anonymous directly addressed Vladimir Putin. The message was read out in English, with Russian subtitles. "Greetings Russian President Vladimir Putin," the message said. "We have been patently waiting for you to respond to our most recent request, but we find ourselves growing impatient of your foot dragging. Unfortunately it seems you have made the option to ignore our presence and therefore we have decided to dedicate and operation specifically for you."

Naming other times the group took websites offline, the voice said, "Our recent attempt to threaten Finland and Sweden is shameful. ou threaten to invade those countries if they join NATO. We took down the websites of the federal anti-monopoly service, Kremlin, Russia Today and many other Russian government associated websites. Vladimir Putin is it a coincidence? Anonymous thinks not. From the depths of your closet, no skeleton will be left unturned. We are now asking for you to restore the rights of the Ukrainian people and resign as an elected official."