Cyber Incident Victim: Channel One
Date:
Sep 2022
Location:
Russia
Summary
Pro-Ukraine hacktivists breached multiple Russian television channels, including Channel One, to broadcast anti-war messages comparing Russia's invasion of Ukraine to historical terrorist attacks. The unauthorized broadcasts featured footage of Russian military actions in Ukrainian cities, statements from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and condemnations from international leaders, asserting Moscow's responsibility for the violence. This incident followed similar prior hacks where the same group disrupted Russian programming in Crimea with pro-Ukrainian content, while pro-Kremlin actors retaliated by compromising Ukrainian media outlets to spread disinformation about Zelensky's health and replace sports broadcasts with propaganda. Both sides have engaged in persistent cyber campaigns targeting broadcast systems since the onset of the conflict.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On September 11, 2022, pro-Ukrainian hacktivist group "hdr0" claimed responsibility for breaching multiple Russian state television channels, including Channel One Russia, Russia-24, and Russia-1. The attackers substituted regular programming with unauthorized broadcasts containing anti-war messages that explicitly compared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York. The hacked transmission featured footage documenting Russian military strikes on Ukrainian cities alongside excerpts from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and international leaders condemning Russia’s actions. A superimposed textual message accused Moscow of being the source of global terrorism, stating: "The world was looking for it in Afghanistan, Iraq… but the terrorist was initially located in Moscow." The group declared via Telegram that Russian viewers were "finally seeing the truth" through this intrusion but provided no technical details regarding the attack methodology or estimated audience reach.
This incident followed established patterns of television channel targeting by Ukrainian-aligned hackers. In May 2022, attackers disrupted Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day parade broadcast in Moscow, replacing it with an anti-war message referencing Ukrainian casualties. During August 2022, the same group compromised a Crimean television station to air Zelensky’s address asserting Ukrainian sovereignty over the peninsula. Reciprocal cyber operations occurred simultaneously, with pro-Kremlin actors hacking two Ukrainian radio stations in July 2022 to falsely announce Zelensky’s critical hospitalization and compromising Ukraine’s Oll.tv streaming service in June 2022 to substitute a football match with Russian propaganda. Ukraine’s national broadcaster additionally reported persistent distributed denial-of-service attacks since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The Channel One breach demonstrated continued exploitation of broadcast infrastructure for psychological operations, though neither the Russian government nor affected channels issued public responses regarding mitigation measures or technical remediation following the September intrusion.