Hacktivism of Anonymous: Here’s How the Legion of Hackers Defended Ukraine from Cyberattacks

Anonymous is now continuously making headlines as they actively participate in defending Ukraine with Russia's territorial dispute.

Anonymous Resurfaces

Anonymous is a well-known legion of hackers, founded as early as 2003. This time, their notoriety will be made by continuously defending Ukraine.

The Anonymous movement is a collaborative project from a group of hacktivists from different countries around the world seeking a better future for humanity.

These hacktivists all come from different cultural backgrounds, political ideologies, and preferred methods of activism. However, this legion operates on its few shared basic principles.

Anonymous's basic principles revolve around freedom of speech, privacy, and accountability from private sectors and public agencies.

When Russia's President Vladimir Putin declared a specialized military operation in Ukraine on Feb. 23, the Anonymous hacktivist group tweeted that multiple Anonymous accounts are gearing up towards launching a cyberattack on Vladimir Putin.

The legion of Anonymous became vocal in threatening Vladimir Putin during the exact day that Russia declared specialized military operations to their neighboring country, Ukraine.

Anonymous was clear that they stand against oppression, help seek justice, and defend those that are left who cannot fight for themselves.

Anonymous: Attacking Russia

Anonymous made several cyberattacks on Russia during the earliest days after Vladimir Putin declared a specialized military operation in Ukraine.

However, all eyes began looking at Anonymous as they attacked Russia on March 2 by hacking the website of Russian oil company Gazprom.

In addition to that cyberattack, the RT News agency, the state-controlled agency in Russia, was successfully pulled down by Anonymous at the same time.

On top of that, as previously reported, Anonymous attacked websites of Russian governments and the Russian defense ministry's website.

The hacktivist took to Twitter and credited themselves for launching the cyberattack to internet service providers in Russia. The hacktivist also took credit for "leaking documents and emails from the Belarusian weapons manufacturer Tetraedr, and shutting down a gas supply provided by the Russian telecommunications service Tvingo Telecom."

Anonymous Hacking Russian TV on March 7

Anonymous made a massive breach in Russian telecommunications that disrupted every channel available in the country. The hacktivist breached all the Russian channels: Russia 24, Moscow 24, Channel One, Wink, and Ivi.

The group disrupted air time and inserted on the ground footage of the devastation in Ukraine showing in the video the damaged buildings, rubbles of road damages, and live footages of bombings by the Russian military.

The hacktivism was featured in their Twitter account, sharing clips of the Russian propaganda they have caused.

After Anonymous hacks Russia, the group posted on their Twitter account stating:

"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"

Anonymous Hacks Russia with Database Breach

Anonymous, according to the report of Fortune, recently attacked 92 out of 100 Russian databases. The collected database was analyzed, compromised, and the file names were changed to "Glory to Ukraine", "Putin stop this war," "stop war," "no war," "HackedByUkraine," and short pro-Ukrainian messages. The files that were compromised by Anonymous were also wiped out. As stated by Fortune, "Hacktivists used a script resembling the "MeowBot," which deletes the content of files and changes their names." One of the compromised entities was The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The CIS is an international organization composed of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Anonymous was able to hack into the lawmaking body, trade, security, and finance systems of these member states. After compromising these files, internal emails and administrative credentials were leaked and some data were renamed to "putin_stop_this_war". The private retail home decor company of Leroy Merlin was also compromised by the hacktivists: files were hacked, corrupted, and then, renamed. Since declaring cyber aggression to Russia, "#Anonymous has hacked over 2500 websites of Russian & Belarusian gov't, state media outlets, banks, hospitals, airports, companies & pro-Russia 'hacking group' in support of #Ukraine."