Several websites broadcasting Putin’s national address on Tuesday were reportedly taken down in a suspected distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
Journalists based in multiple locations were unable to access the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) website or the Smotrim live-streaming platform for the duration of the speech, Reuters reported.
The Smotrim site simply didn’t load, but VGTRK displayed an error message that “technical work is being done”.
Reuters was unable to confirm that DDoS was the cause, but other sources did. The RIA Novosti news agency reportedly claimed that malicious online attackers were responsible, but his Twitter account linked to his IT military in Ukraine confirmed the same.
“Well done! We launched a DDoS attack against the channels (1TV, VGTRK, Smotrim) showing President Putin’s speech to the Bundestag.” it said in the post Links to official news about the incident. “Slava Ukraine”
The IT Army is a hacktivist group founded at the start of the war by Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Fyodorov after he sought supporters to help attack Russian targets. Select these targets and publish them to Telegram groups.
The relative ease with which hacktivists can download DDoS contracting tools and services has made such campaigns much easier to carry out, but they rarely interfere with their targets more than sporadically.
Previous attacks have disrupted the websites of major alcohol distribution portals, the Moscow Stock Exchange and several Russian banks.
However, Russian hacktivists, especially Killnet, are also busy. The group has claimed responsibility for some pretty high-profile targets over the past year, including 14 US airports, several Lithuanian and Japanese government websites, and US and Dutch hospitals.
A connection between Kilnett and the Russian government has not been confirmed, but it is likely.
