Cyber Incident Victim: Izvestiya
Date:
Feb 2022
Location:
Russia
Summary
Anonymous disrupted multiple Russian state media outlets, including Izvestiya, through website defacements and denial-of-service attacks. The group replaced content with anti-war messages urging Russians to oppose the invasion of Ukraine, citing concerns over escalating repression and economic isolation. These actions coincided with broader cyber campaigns targeting government entities such as the Kremlin and defense ministry, alongside telecommunications providers experiencing service disruptions. Anonymous framed the attacks as protests against the conflict, while Ukraine's digital ministry called for IT volunteers to support its cyber defenses amid the ongoing hostilities.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 2 techniques |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On February 28, 2022, the hacker collective Anonymous claimed responsibility for cyberattacks disrupting multiple Russian state-affiliated media outlets, including the newspaper Izvestiya. The attacks, conducted in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, targeted the websites of state news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti, alongside media entities Kommersant, Forbes Russia, and Izvestiya. Anonymous defaced these websites with messages urging Russian citizens to oppose the war, emphasizing that the conflict served only Putin’s interests and risked isolating Russia internationally. A message on Forbes Russia’s site, purportedly from “concerned journalists of Russia,” acknowledged the likelihood of retaliation against dissenters but stated an unwillingness to remain silent. The attacks involved website takeovers and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaigns, which overwhelmed targeted domains with traffic to render them inaccessible.
These incidents followed a pattern of escalating cyber operations against Russian infrastructure. On February 24, Anonymous had hacked RT, the state-funded international television channel. Subsequent DDoS attacks over the weekend of February 26–27 temporarily disabled websites for the Kremlin, the Russian Ministry of Defence, and the Duma (Russia’s lower legislative body). NetBlocks, a web monitoring organization, corroborated disruptions on February 26, noting latency and access issues affecting major Russian telecommunications providers Rostelecom, MTS, Beeline, and Megafon. Concurrently, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, publicly solicited IT specialists on February 26 to join an “IT army” supporting Ukraine’s cyber defenses and offensive operations. The attacks on Izvestiya and other media formed part of this broader retaliatory campaign, combining hacktivist disruption with psychological appeals to undermine domestic Russian support for the war.