Posted on May 14, 2018 at 4:38 PM
Anonymous Responded to Russian Censorship by Hacking a Government Website
The Anonymous hacktivists conducted another major cyber attack, this time on one of the websites belonging to the Russian government. The hack came as a response to recent censorships implemented by Russia, especially the ones regarding the block of Telegram and various VPNs and proxies.
Anonymous attack Russia
A well-known hacktivist group by the name of Anonymous conducted a new attack on May 10. The target for this attack was the website belonging to Federal Agency for International Cooperation of Russia, otherwise known as Rossotrudnichestvo.
The group concentrated its attack on the subdomain of this website, which was dedicated to the country’s newest censorship program, which also includes the ban on Telegram.
Back in April of this year, the Russian government demanded that Telegram hands over the encryption keys which would be used for spying on Russian users of the app. The company’s founder, Pavel Durov, immediately refused to do so, which led to a total ban on this app throughout the country.
Durov stated back then that the ban would not hurt the company in the long run, but he still invested in various VPN and proxies. It was his hope that Russian citizens could use these tools to bypass the ban, which led to another aspect of the censorship by the government.
On May 3, Russia’s Roskomnadzor, which is the country’s communication and media regulatory authority, implemented a ban on 50 VPNs, Anonymizers and proxies that could be used to access Telegram’s services. This was the act that provoked the Anonymous group to conduct the latest cyber attack against Rossotrudnichestvo’s subdomain.
The attackers’ left a message
The attackers posted an NSFW image, followed by messages against the recent censorship. The message states that the Roskomnadzor’s destructive actions led the group to believe that the organization consists of a “handful of incompetent brainless worms”. The message further states that Roskomnadzor no longer needs to have the ability to continue the actions which the Anonymous see as “pointless vandalism”. They also stated that this will be their “last warning”.
Despite the fact that the main website belonging to Rossotrudnichestvo still runs without any issues, there is still no change in the status of the affected subdomain, which remains offline. The actions against this subdomain by Anonymous cannot guarantee that the censorship would be revoked. However, it was still a pleasant surprise for many anti-censorship enthusiasts to see that the Anonymous are still active, and supportive towards the freedom of the Internet.
