War-supporting companies in Russia targeted by Ukrainian hackers

Ukrainian activists from the cyber community BO_Team, in cooperation with experts from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, have carried out a series of attacks on Russian companies supporting the war against Ukraine.

According to the Defense Ministry, hackers last week destroyed more than 100 terabytes of data belonging to OrbitSoft, a software developer that works with the Russian military.

They also deleted data on eight servers belonging to Orient Systems, a supplier of navigation equipment to Russian defense companies, particularly for the production of unmanned aerial vehicles.

In addition, the hackers targeted 19 servers of Internet providers in Nizhny Novgorod, erased all data and sent messages to all subscribers about “inevitable retaliation” for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

This cyberattack came shortly after the IT Army of Ukraine, a volunteer cyber warfare group, said it attacked Russian banks and the Russian payment system Mir on June 20, rendering a number of services “inoperable.”

The Mir payment system was introduced after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, after international sanctions began to restrict the use of international cards.

According to the group, the attack paralyzed the Mir payment system and affected banks such as VTB, Alfa-Bank, Gazprombank, Sberbank “and many smaller services.” It was “possibly the largest DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack in history,” the group said.

IMF approves $2.2 billion in financial assistance for Ukraine through Extended Fund Facility

“Ukraine’s performance under the EFF remains strong despite difficult conditions,” the IMF said in a press release. “All quantitative performance criteria for end-March were met and all structural benchmarks for end-June were implemented on time or with little delay.”