KEY POINTS
- Anonymous has taken down the websites of Belgorod State University and VPO Servis
- The group also previously hacked the website of the Federal Customs Service of Russia
- Russia has killed more than 4,500 Ukrainian civilians since the beginning of the war
Anonymous, the decentralized hacktivist collective that swore to fight Russia on the cyber front following its invasion of Ukraine, on Tuesday announced another series of attacks against Russian websites.
In a series of Twitter posts, the hacking collective announced it successfully took down the websites of Belgorod State University and VPO Servis, a ventilation cleaning company based in Russia.
The latest attack comes a little over a week after Anonymous announced it had taken down the websites of the Federal Customs Service of Russia as well as goodstom.ru, a site belonging to a dental clinic in St. Petersburg. As of Tuesday, both websites remain inaccessible.
The group also recently obtained access to classified documents bearing valuable information about Russia's drone plans and tactics after it hacked into a weapons company tasked with handling the Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Anonymous uploaded the documents to HateBin. The leaked documents contained military plans and files collected from various Russian government and military sources.
In April, Anonymous declared it will launch a cyber warfare against Russia and continue to release more confidential information until the Kremlin stops the war in Ukraine.
“The hacking will continue until Russia stops their aggression,” the collective said in a tweet.
Russia first announced its “special military operation” in Ukraine in February, adding that the Kremlin aims to “demilitarize and de-Nazify” the country, which is being led by a Jewish president. Since then, Russian aggression has led to the death of 4,597 Ukrainian civilians, including 313 children. At least 5,711 civilians have also sustained injuries amid the war, according to estimates from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The organization noted that most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by explosive weapons, including shelling and multiple launch rocket systems.
It is believed the actual number of casualties among Ukrainian civilians are higher as locations suffering from intense hostilities have delayed their reporting.
While the Kremlin has yet to release an official death toll, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine estimates that they have killed at least 34,100 Russian soldiers as of Tuesday.
Representation. A hacker. Photo: FotoArt-Treu/Pixabay
