Shortly after Russia's military attack on Ukraine, Anonymous declared cyber war on Russia.

Anonymous officially in the war against Russia

The events in Ukraine immediately brought the collective onto the scene.

It was announced via Twitter on February 24th at 10:50 a.m.: “The Anonymous collective is officially in cyberwar against the Russian government.”

(translated with Deepl)

Who is behind this collective?

Wikipedia describes the group of self-proclaimed computer specialists as follows

“Initially emerging as a fun movement from the imageboard 4chan , Anonymous has become increasingly political since 2008 with protests for freedom of speech, the independence of the Internet and against copyright, writers and various organizations, including Scientology , state authorities, global corporations, copyright societies and also in international social problem cases appear. The participants initially only operated on the Internet, but now they also conduct their activities outside the Internet. Anonymous’ means of action include demonstrations and hacker attacks.”

(HERE)

The global public, which was helplessly following the Russian invasion and not only on Twitter, enthusiastically received this statement.
The well-known motto of Anonymous is


“We are Anonymous . We are Legion. We don't forgive. We don't forget.

“We are Anonymous. We are many. We don't forgive. We do not forget,"

Knight in shining armor?

Especially against the background of the propaganda and disinformation carried out by the Putin regime in Western countries, Anonymous' commitment seemed to many to be a welcome and legitimate way to put Putin in his place and fight him digitally.
 
The legality of the actions did not play a major role in the public discussion given the monstrosity of the war that Putin is waging against Ukraine and his own helplessness. But what exactly has happened since then and how effective are the hackers' activities actually?

Can they stop Putin's war or have an impact on Russian society? Some call it so, others so.

Spectacular actions

Various actions by Anonymous have attracted widespread attention.

The most sensational actions occurred in the early days of the war. In February, Anonymous claimed credit for a hack of the Russian Defense Ministry website. In addition, the Kremlin website and government portal were taken offline ( HERE ).

A DDOS attack ( HERE ) caused the websites of the TV channel RT News, which is under direct state control, and other Russian media outlets that spread state propaganda to collapse. Millions of computers access individual pages at the same time, meaning they can no longer process the access and are completely overloaded. Anonymous also claimed responsibility for this attack.

On February 26, the focus was on Russian state television. Images were shown on several channels for several minutes that the Russian audience normally does not see or should not see at all: current images from the combat zones. Particular attention was paid to the suffering of the civilian population. Pro-Ukrainian slogans of perseverance and national music could also be seen and heard, at least for a short time, before the hacker attack could be repelled ( HERE ).

Russian daily newspapers also fell victim to the collective, which has taken up the cause of taking action against the Putin government's propaganda.

The associated websites repeatedly showed calls to defend themselves against the war. The media affected were Izvestia, Kommersant and the Russian press agency TASS. A banner from the hacker collective “Anonymous” appeared on the “Izvestia” website.

“We urge you to stop this madness, do not send your sons and husbands to certain death. “Putin makes us lie and puts us in danger.”

(HERE)

On March 24, Anonymous announced on Twitter that they had successfully hacked the Russian central bank. The collective threatened in the tweet that the over 35,000 files would be published within 48 hours. It remains to be seen whether this data actually finds its way into the public domain.

Hacktivism

But not only hacking is on the Anonymous agenda, but also activism. It is unclear who had the original idea, whether an unknown Polish Google user, as is rumored, or actually Anonymous. The idea spread across all channels in a flash. People were excited to be able to do something themselves. In any case, the collective published a call to use Google's rating function to write truths about the war in Ukraine - in words and pictures - in the comments on reviews of Russian restaurants and the like. And that really gave this campaign a boost. Until Google deleted the reviews overnight ( HERE ). It is unclear whether it was on their own initiative because of the violation of the terms of use (only use their own experiences for reviews) or under pressure from the Russian government.

Who is Anonymous?

Anonymous emerged in the early 2000s from a group of computer nerds who were not registered on Ichan4 by name and were therefore displayed as “Anonymous”.

The swarm intelligence of adolescent teenagers became a much-feared network with a penchant for self-promotion, but one that also delivered really big hacks. Visa and Scientology were successfully attacked, Mexican drug cartels and the CIA and even the Vatican were not helped by heavenly assistance. The group sees itself as a social movement that advocates freedom of expression, but often takes paths that go beyond the legal. This has led to Anonymous being viewed as terrorists in some countries ( HERE ).

Anonymous is incomprehensible and its structures can hardly be defined; the computer specialists act too anonymously.

What the unknown parts of the collective have in common is the self-image of being a corrective against the oppression of society, regardless of whether the supposed oppressors are governments or corporations. If careless hackers are exposed and arrested, new hackers immediately take their place. It is not always clear whether confessions of belonging to the collective are supported by reality. Anyone can claim to be Anonymous. Only the network itself knows. The symbol of the collective is the mask with which the 17th century Catholic English assassin Guy Fawkes was depicted in the comic “V for Vendetta”.

After the times when people met in forums and on image boards, Anonymous now organizes itself via messenger services such as Threema or Telegram and exchanges information there about “attractive” security gaps and upcoming actions. Outside your own bubble, Twitter is the communication tool of the time. There are now various Twitter channels that are attributed to Anonymous and also report on the collective's activities in Ukraine. Here is an overview of the German communication channels ( HERE ) that AnonLeaks publishes on its website. However, the @AnonNewsDE channel has been blocked since last fall. As part of the Tinfoil campaign, Anonymous took over various websites and channels of the conspiracy teller Attila Hildmann. The publication of this information, however, probably violated Twitter's terms of use for protecting the privacy of its users ( HERE ).

Doesn't always run smoothly

Not all actions go as planned.

This is the current Nestlé hack. Anonymous wanted to persuade the last companies still active in Russia to withdraw using a 48-hour ultimatum. And in doing so, make an example of Nestlé. 10 GB of sensitive data was hijacked and published, including passwords, emails and customer data. It's just a shame that Anonymous was so wrong. Nestlé said there had been no intrusion into its systems. The data is test data that was accidentally published in February. There is no need for further action ( HERE ). Nevertheless, Nestlé announced a little later that it would partially withdraw from Russia and stop selling non-essential products. The almost 6,000 employees, on the other hand, would continue to receive their income ( HERE ). To what extent Anonymous played a role in this partial withdrawal, or whether Nestlé recognized the signs of the times, remains unclear.

A little bit of fun is always good?

The current printer hack is almost more amusing. Russian printers were hijacked and documents were printed out in companies and private households across the country that explain how free media can be used via the Tor network for anonymous use of the Internet. A clear call to Russian readers to evade Russian information control. I also included a craft picture. Fold three times and the four pigs shown magically form the face of the Russian President ( HERE ).

Anonymous also relies on modern recruiting methods: Yesterday, March 25th, a post appeared on Facebook inviting interested users to become team members. The link leads to Telegram… 😉

Anonymous and not really harmless

If security experts are to be believed, the attacks that have so far been publicly claimed by the collective are technically rather easy to carry out.

Security expert Pichlmayr from Ikarus confirms this to Standard.at, but also sees an unknown component. Because you don't know what's happening in the background and attacks on critical infrastructure could lead to an "escalation of war in cyberspace" ( HERE ).

Anyone who wants to position themselves in cyber war against Russia should be warned. There is a high risk that illegal actions will come into the focus of your own law enforcement authorities. After all, the Internet is not a legal vacuum. What may be worse, however, is the attention of the Russian authorities. ( HERE and HERE ).

Conclusion

The hacker collective Anonymous is apparently currently focused on cyber war against Putin's propaganda machine.
The aim is to educate the Russian population about Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine. It is unknown whether there are other cyber attacks running in the background in addition to the publicly announced actions. Experts point out that Anonymous also work illegally and participating in the collective involves high personal risk.


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )