Anonymous news – live: Hacking attacks and cyber warfare could lead Russia to cut itself off from the internet

Vladimir Putin is getting ‘a sip of his own bitter medicine’, one German Anonymous group wrote

White House says Russian military intelligence behind cyber attacks on Ukraine

While Ukrainian forces fight against the Russian military's invasion, hackers from around the world caused disruption to Russia’s digital infrastructure.

Hacking groups such as Anonymous and the Cyber Partisans have claimed responsibility for cyberattacks on Russia’s banks, state broadcaster RT, and a Belarusian rail network reportedly used to move troops from Russia to Ukraine.

The “biggest Anonymous op ever seen” was claimed as Russian news channels like Russia 24, Channel One, and Moscow 24, including streaming sites, showed footage of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Peace talks between the two countries are ongoing between the two nations, but it remains unclear how long the bloodshed will last. Currently, these cyber groups have said that they stand with Ukraine against Russia’s powerful online forces - causing disruption to stop the country’s own attacks against Ukraine and the West.

Key points

• Anonymous hacks Russian state TV with Ukraine footage
• Russia may cut itself off from the global internet because of ‘continuous cyberattacks’
• Intel is out of Russia

[9 March 2022 08:53 · Adam Smith]

Intel is out of Russia

Much like Samsung, and the restrictions Apple and Google has placed on citizens in the country, Intel has now said it has “suspended all shipments to customers in both Russia and Belarus.”

In a statement, the chip giant continued: “Our thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted by this war, including the people of Ukraine and the surrounding countries and all those around the world with family, friends and loved ones in the region.”

“We are working to support all of our employees through this difficult situation, especially those with close ties to this region ... We will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine and the global community in calling for an immediate end to this war and a swift return to peace.”

[9 March 2022 10:05 · Adam Smith]

Russia may cut itself off from the global internet because of ‘continuous cyberattacks’

Russia is reportedly planning to disconnect itself from Western internet services as technology companies block off the country during the invasion of Ukraine.

The move could isolate Russia further as firms including Netflix, Adobe, PayPal, and others have all suspended services.

Now, two documents published by the Ministry of Digital Development outline measures the Russian government wants state-owned websites to take to “coordinate actions to defend telecommunication services on the internet.”

This includes switching from foreign hosting services to those based in Russia, and removing code that did not originate in the country.

However, rather than an internal action, the Russian state has suggested that this is a measure to be taken in the wake of cyberattacks that could harm government websites.

“There are continuous cyberattacks on Russian sites from abroad. We are preparing for different scenarios. There are no plans to disconnect the internet from inside,” said Andrey Chernenko, the ministry’s deputy director, as reported by Motherboard.

[9 March 2022 14:32 · Adam Smith]

Cloudflare sets servers in Ukraine and Russia to ‘brick themselves’ if they lose power

Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare has said that it will automatically shut down servers that go offline in Ukraine and Russia.

The web company, which is based in the United States, has removed all customer encryption keys from its data centres located in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

It is instead replacing them with a ‘keyless’ technology that allows encryption sessions to be terminated by a secure data centre – separate from the risk of being compromised.

“If any of our facilities or servers in Ukraine, Belarus, or Russia lose power or connectivity to the Internet, we have configured them to brick themselves”, Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince wrote.

“All data on disk is encrypted with keys that are not stored on site. Bricked machines will not be able to be booted unless a secure, machine-specific key that is not stored on site is entered.”

[9 March 2022 20:00 · Adam Smith]

Twitter’s Tor site

Twitter has launched on the dark web, allowing people in Russia and other countries that have banned the social network to evade censorship.

Russia blocked access to Facebook and restricted access to Twitter last week in retaliation to the platforms placing restrictions on state-owned media like Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik.

Roskomnadzor, the country’s communications regulator, cited 26 cases of “discrimination” against Russian media since October 2020, though the move also made it harder for ordinary citizens to access footage and information from reliable sources of Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine.

Anyone accused of intentionally spreading what the Kremlin deems to be “fake” reports faces up to 15 years in prison.

People in Russia will now be able to access Twitter anonymously via the dark web – a hidden section of the internet that is only accessible via specialist software.

[9 March 2022 23:00 · Adam Smith]

Tim Cook sends coded Ukraine message

Taking a page out of Apple’s book of incremental updates, CEO Tim Cook added the colours of Ukraine’s flag to his escalating opposition to Russia’s invasion.

Mr Cook wore a blue jumper and yellow Apple Watch band during his keynote address at the company’s spring product announcement event.

The non-verbal communique comes after Apple explicitly confirmed it was stopping all online sales in Russia and stopped exporting products to Russia.

The company also pulled news outlets RT News and Sputnik from its App Store, while Apple Pay and other services were also limited.

The company disabled traffic accident and live incident reports in Apple Maps in Ukraine “as a safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens”.

[10 March 2022 13:23 · Adam Smith]

Russian VPN use has increased 1,000% as citizens bypass Putin’s censorship

Russian remand for VPNs has increased over 1,000 per cent in the past month, as citizens look to get information from outside of the country in the face of external sanctions and internal censorship.

The Kremlin has been blocking external news organisations such as the BBC, as well as social media sites like Facebook and Twitter; meanwhile, companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Google, and more have been pulling services from Russia and Belarus.

Using a VPN – virtual private network – to reroute traffic through other areas is the most common way to bypass this. According to data from Top10VPN, search traffic around the acronym increased by 1,092 per cent over the last 30 days.

AppFigures also reported that downloads for the top VPN software in Russia increased dramatically – from an average of 16,000 per day to over 700,000 daily downloads since February 24, an increase of 4,375 per cent.

“In the 10 days between February 24 and March 5, the top 10 VPN apps on the App Store and on Google Play saw more than 4,600,000 new downloads. And our estimates are very conservative here.”

[10 March 2022 19:00 · Adam Smith]

Anonymous claims to have hacked Roskomnadzor

[10 March 2022 23:00 · Adam Smith]

Russian citizens are using emoji codes to avoid authorities and organise protests

Russians are using emojis to organize protests in order to avoid censorship.

In February, as Russia invaded Ukraine, a picture of the Russian poet Pushkin accompanied by the number seven and rows of people walking was shared on social media.

The BBC reports that these emojis were a reference that was well-known to authorities, but was still used to spread the word around Russian people to attend demonstrations.

Russians will use phrases like “Let’s go for a walk to the centre” or “The weather is great for a walk” to let others know they will attend a protest, with one describing the evasion of government censors like an inside joke or a meme.

Almost 14,000 people have been detained across Russia since the invasion began, and arrests have reportedly increased since the new law was introduced.