Cyber Incident Victim: Amtel-Svyaz

On March 20, 2022, a faction of the hacking collective Anonymous claimed responsibility for compromising unsecured printers across Russia to distribute anti-war messages and censorship circumvention instructions. The group announced via a Twitter account affiliated with Anonymous that they had printed over 100,000 copies of protest materials during a two-hour operation involving 15 participants. The hackers initially reported accessing 156 printers, later escalating their output significantly. Distributed materials included a PDF document written in Russian Cyrillic text accusing President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin, and state media of lying about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The document urged citizens to reject state propaganda, characterizing Putin’s actions as terrorism and emphasizing that Ukrainian civilians did not deserve violence. It provided technical guidance for installing the Tor browser to bypass government internet restrictions and access uncensored information. The message framed the conflict as driven by Kremlin fears of Western influence rather than Ukrainian aggression, directly contradicting Russian state narratives. It concluded with a call for citizens to overthrow Putin’s government, citing the defense of national honor and the need to stop innocent bloodshed. Images shared by the hackers showed a printer command prompt and the PDF’s content, which reporters verified after contacting the operatives. Raw Story and other outlets corroborated the claims through independent analysis of the posted evidence.

This incident followed earlier cyber activities by Anonymous against Russian infrastructure. On March 13, the same Twitter account hinted at preparing a "HUGE ... data dump" targeting Russia, though no further details were disclosed by March 20. Separately, Anonymous affiliates had disrupted the Kremlin’s official website (Kremlin.ru), rendering it inaccessible prior to March 17. Russian authorities confirmed restoring the site’s functionality by March 17, though no public statements addressed the printer intrusions. The printer campaign’s primary impact was disseminating anti-government messages directly into Russian households and businesses, potentially undermining public trust in state media. The inclusion of Tor installation instructions aimed to empower citizens to evade internet controls independently. No technical details about printer vulnerabilities exploited or specific victim organizations were disclosed. Newsweek attempted to solicit comments from Russian officials but received no response by the article’s publication date.