All articles tagged with #hacktivists
Commercial spyware maker mSpy has suffered another data breach, exposing millions of users' data, including email addresses, IP addresses, and sensitive attachments. Hacktivists were responsible for the theft, which included 142GB of user data and 176GB of attachments. This is mSpy's third major breach, following incidents in 2015 and 2018. Other stalkerware companies like LetMeSpy and pcTattletale have also faced similar breaches recently.
The Red Cross recently issued ethical guidelines for civilian hackers involved in armed conflicts, but hacktivist groups in Ukraine and Russia have scorned and ridiculed these guidelines. Ukrainian hacker groups, such as Hdr0 and Cyber Anarchy Squad, expressed their disregard for the Red Cross' authority and stated their intention to cause harm to their enemies using any means available. Pro-Russian hacking groups, including Killnet and Anonymous Sudan, also dismissed the guidelines, deeming them unviable and unavoidable to break. The Red Cross guidelines emphasized humanitarian law-based rules, but hacktivists argued that cyberattacks on critical and civilian infrastructure are a more humane alternative to bombings and other destructive attacks. The Red Cross has faced criticism for its branches in Russia and Belarus allegedly being used by totalitarian regimes to abduct and illegally traffic Ukrainian children.
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned of a growing threat to Western critical national infrastructure from Russia-aligned "hacktivists" who are not subject to formal state control. While some of these groups have carried out largely harmless online campaigns, others have been actively plotting ways to cause real-world damage. The NCSC said that such attacks would be "unlikely" to be achieved by hacktivist groups "without external assistance", but warned that they "may become more effective over time".
Russian hackers are targeting Poland and Nordic and Baltic countries with cyberweapons to promote anti-war messages and sow divisions, according to a report by French defence firm Thales. About 60% of all cyberattacks reported worldwide were conducted by Russian hackers. While Russia's cyberwar on Ukraine has largely failed, Moscow is increasingly targeting Kyiv's European allies. Thales and Microsoft said Russia's invasion was accompanied by widespread cyberattacks in Ukraine, but they were repelled.