Cyber Incident Victim: UNICEF India
Date:
Aug 2015
Location:
India
Summary
The official UNICEF India website was compromised and defaced by a Turkish hacker group identifying as RootDevilz, Jonturk75, and Bozkurt97, who replaced the site's content with a protest message in Turkish and English. The hackers denounced China, the United States, the European Union, Israel, India, and the United Nations for alleged human rights violations, including actions against Uyghur Muslims, Palestinians, and Kashmiris, as well as global military interventions. They explicitly stated their intent was to publicize these grievances rather than target the humanitarian organization itself. The defaced site was subsequently restored to normal operation.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 2 motives | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 3 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On August 16, 2015, the official website of UNICEF India was compromised and defaced by a group identifying themselves as Turkish hackers using the aliases RootDevilz, Jonturk75, and Bozkurt97. The attackers replaced the site’s legitimate content with a custom page displaying bilingual messages in Turkish and English, condemning China, the United States, the European Union, Israel, India, and the United Nations. The defacement text accused China of persecuting Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, the US of global military aggression, the EU of anti-immigrant policies, Israel of violence against Palestinians, India of human rights violations in Kashmir, and the UN for failing to intervene in these conflicts. The hackers explicitly stated their motive was not to target UNICEF’s humanitarian mission but to exploit the organization’s platform to amplify their geopolitical grievances. The defacement included the phrase “Unicef İndia Pwned | Hearts a Petrified Monster Israeli Zionists. You Will Find us in The Face of All the Games You’ve played,” accompanied by symbolic imagery. This incident aligned with prior campaigns by Turkish hacking groups, which had previously defaced Chinese government websites to protest the treatment of Uyghur communities.
The attack rendered UNICEF India’s website temporarily inaccessible to legitimate users, replacing its content with the hackers’ manifesto until mitigation efforts were completed. The group publicly claimed responsibility via a tweet from the account @JRBops, which tagged both UNICEF India and cybersecurity news outlet HackRead, directing followers to archived evidence of the defacement. UNICEF’s technical teams restored the website to normal operation by August 19, 2015, when the incident was publicly reported. No data theft, malware deployment, or secondary disruptions beyond the defacement were documented in the available sources. The hackers’ focus on ideological messaging rather than financial gain or data exfiltration distinguished this incident from contemporaneous cybercrime trends, emphasizing their intent to leverage high-visibility domains for political dissent.