A collective of Russian hacktivists attacked NATO websites, hampering the organization of an operation to transport medical supplies to Turkey.
Natural and humanitarian disasters do not change the activity of pirates. Russian hacktivists attacked NATO services, disrupting the Alliance’s humanitarian activities towards Turkey and Syria, British media The Telegraph reported on February 12. An earthquake struck both countries on February 6, killing more than 35,000 people.
While the North Atlantic Military Organization pledged to provide aid to victims, Russian hacker groups launched operations to disrupt NATO’s computer system at the same time. The denial of service (DDoS) attack took down many websites, including that of the special operations headquarters in Belgium and the Alliance’s Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC). This entity provides air, military and humanitarian transport.
Constant harassment from declared enemies of Moscow
While this type of attack usually brings a site down, the disruptions and time spent upgrading have hampered the transport of medical supplies to Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.
NATO confirmed the cyberattack. One executive told British reporters: “ Our cyber experts are working on an incident affecting some of the Organization’s websites “. Killnet, the leading hacktivist collective, claimed responsibility for the attack on its Telegram channel.
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, groups of Russian hackers – considered sponsored by the Kremlin – have been attacking the sites of designated enemies of Moscow, Killnet, NoName057 or Anonymous Russia are among the collectives the most active. These collectives organize themselves on Telegram and are constantly looking for new members, even offering to pay participants. If attacks generally have little impact, sometimes a disruption has more serious consequences, like the February 12 operation.
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