Mar 3, 2022 5:56 PM

Hacktivists Stoke Pandemonium Amid Russia’s War in Ukraine

A wave of cyberattacks meant to make a statement and particularly buoy Ukraine could have unintended consequences.

A collage with a demonstrator waving a Ukrainian flag.

on thursday, hackers defaced a Russian Space Research Institute website and leaked files that they allege are stolen from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Their message? “Leave Ukraine alone else Anonymous will f*ck you up even more.” Meanwhile a DDoS attack pummeled Russia's .ru “top level domain,” with the aim of essentially cutting off access to all URLs that end in .ru. These are just the latest incidents in a surge of hacktivism in support of Ukraine.

Protests against Russia’s war of choice with Ukraine have been held around the world, including in 48 Russian cities. The global community has raised millions of dollars for Ukraine through cryptocurrency donations, and private companies from Shell and BP to Apple have temporarily or permanently pulled out of the Russian market. Amidst the havoc, hacktivists are joining the cacophony in an attempt to make a statement and advance their cause.

For years, Russia has barraged Ukraine with an array of intrusive and destructive cyberattacks. And the war opened in recent days with Russian campaigns to hit Ukrainian institutions with DDoS attacks and awaken data-wiping malware on hundreds of Ukrainian computers. Ukraine itself has launched an effort to amass a volunteer “IT Army” of civilian hackers from around the world to aid its fight, alongside traditional conscription. Still, as the back-and-forth has escalated into violence in the region and NATO countries have battered Russia with crippling economic sanctions, hacktivist data leaks, website defacements, and cyberattacks have become one of the most visible, if not necessarily the most impactful, digital battlegrounds.

The mix of hacktivism and active warfare creates a messy picture, experts say. Some caution that hacktivism could lead to unintended escalations or endanger intelligence operations. Others argue that even more than in peacetime, periods of active combat render hacktivism ineffectual and largely just distracting.

“It's a high-intensity armed conflict between two states with heavy kinetic warfare, civilian casualties, and physical destruction,” says Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity researcher and former cyberwarfare advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross. “Let's be honest here, what may hacktivism change in this picture? Besides, most of the reports of hacktivism are unverifiable at best. They are highly amplified on social media and traditional electronic media, but what is the actual effect?”

If nothing else, the hacktivist efforts have been very visible. As Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, the hacking collective Anonymous tweeted that it was “officially in cyber war against the Russian government.” The group claimed credit for attacks that briefly knocked out access to a number of sites, including that of the state-controlled Russian news agency RT, Russian oil giant Gazprom, the Kremlin itself, and other Russian government agencies. A marine tracking data defacement resulted in Putin’s yacht being renamed "FCKPTN” in maritime tracking data. Soon after, two groups, known as “Anonymous Liberland” and “the Pwn-Bär Hack,” leaked roughly 200 gigabytes worth of alleged emails from the Belarusian weapons manufacturer Tetraedr.

On Monday, the collective claimed another wave of website defacements, saying it had posted anti-war overlays on a number of news websites, including that of the Russian newspaper Kommersant and the state-run outlets TASS and RIA Novosti.

Hacktivist activity predates the actual war. A group known as the Belarusian Cyber Partisans attacked Belarus' railway system at the end of January and recently claimed to be at it again. The goal of the original initiative was to slow Russia's troop buildup along Ukrainian borders; this week the group said it wanted to disrupt Russian military movement.

“We continue to help Ukrainians in their fight against Russian occupation forces,” the group tweeted on Sunday. “The Railways is under attack. … Manual control mode is enabled, which will slow down the movement of trains but will NOT create emergency situations. It will NOT endanger ordinary citizens!”

Cyber Partisans spokesperson Yuliana Shemetovets told WIRED that the group has grown in recent weeks. “Five new people, Belarusians, joined the group since the war started,” she said. “More are on the list to be verified.”

Meanwhile, the Conti and CoomingProject ransomware groups declared their allegiance to Russia last week. Soon after, more than 60,000 of Conti's internal messages leaked, along with the message “Glory to Ukraine!” The trove, presumably leaked by Conti affiliates, reveals details about how the group is organized and how it operates. On Wednesday, Conti seemed to be dismantling its infrastructure, evidence of the impacts hacktivism can have, regardless of whether such protests directly shape the course of the war.

On Thursday, security researchers at Trustwave SpiderLabs also published findings that a pro-Russia entity, JokerDNR, has been publishing blog posts aimed at embarrassing Ukrainian officials and even claiming to dox some Ukrainian government workers and military members by publishing alleged names, addresses, and other contact information.

A number of security companies and other organizations have released free versions of digital defense tools or expanded their free offerings to help Ukrainians defend their networks. Google, for example, says its human rights-focused DDoS protection service Project Shield is now in use by more than 150 Ukrainian websites.

Hacktivists aren't the only ones leaking data left and right. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian newspaper Pravda published a trove of personal data allegedly identifying roughly 120,000 Russian soldiers deployed in Ukraine. And Ukraine's IT Army has been working to employ some hacktivist techniques in a more organized and strategic way.

“DDoS is all well and good, but it's a blunt instrument," an IT Army participant who goes by the handle “November” tells WIRED. "We wish to be more precise, carefully selecting our targets and avoiding any collateral damage to the livelihood and well-being of the Russian citizenry. Our primary concern is in countering Russian disinformation on the conflict, by any means possible, and providing quality open-sourced intelligence in an effort to preserve Ukrainian lives.”

In a situation like the invasion of Ukraine, hacktivism could do more harm than good. Some researchers note that a worst-case scenario of hacktivism would be an incident or series of attacks that inadvertently escalates a conflict or is used as a pretext for escalation by one side or the other.

Additionally, by calling attention to the cybersecurity shortcomings of high-sensitivity networks and digital platforms, hacktivists could inadvertently expose friendly intelligence forces already lurking there.

“Hacktivism by its very nature is always loud, and intelligence by its nature is usually quiet,” says incident responder and former NSA hacker Jake Williams. “Well-meaning hacktivists being loud may unwittingly lead security forces to intelligence operation that may have been ongoing in that network and flying under the radar. So they're essentially outed and lose access because of an investigation into a hacktivist attack.”

Some hacking tools used by that intelligence force may also be exposed in such a situation, rendering them less useful.

Williams adds that when spies lose access to information they want or need during a combat situation, they are forced to try to reestablish that access however they can. To get the job done quickly, individuals may take greater risks of exposing themselves or use hacking tools that could later be exposed.

“When there are boots on the ground, when there are bullets flying, it absolutely changes the calculus on whether hacktivism is a net positive,” he says. “All that said, if I were Ukrainian I would probably be hacking the hell out of Russian stuff, and I could care less about the West’s long-term intelligence capability.”