Russian state media faced 'unprecedented' cyberattack on Putin's birthday
Russian state media company VGTRK came under a hacker attack on Oct. 7, disrupting online broadcasts of Rossiya-1 and Rossiya-24 channels.
The cyberattack was carried out by Ukrainian hackers as a way to "congratulate" Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 72nd birthday, an undisclosed government source told Reuters.
"Our state media holding, one of the largest, has faced an unprecedented hacker attack on its digital infrastructure," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the media.
The cyberattack targeted internal services of the VGTRK company, the pro-state Russian outlet Gazeta.ru wrote, citing an undisclosed source.
"Our specialists are working to eliminate the consequences of this malicious interference," VGTRK said on its VKontakte channel, claiming that the company suffered no significant damage.
The online broadcast of Rossiya-1 and Rossiya-24 is available as of Oct. 8.
Ukrainian hackers have been attacking Russian online platforms on a regular basis since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.
A large-scale cyberattack in late June left at least 250,000 consumers in occupied Crimea and other Russian-controlled territories without communication, a military intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent.
The June attack reportedly affected both the networks of consumers and operators that used the impacted infrastructure on Russian-occupied territories. Representatives of Russian providers called it "the most powerful DDoS attack they have ever experienced," the HUR said.
In July, Ukraine's military intelligence agency carried out a cyberattack against the Russian banking system, targeting several top banks. As a result, Russian bank users were unable to withdraw cash, and when they tried to use an ATM, their debit and credit cards were immediately blocked.
