Ukrainian hackers gave a "gift" to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on his birthday by launching a massive cyberattack on Russia's state television and radio broadcasting company.
According to Russian sources, online broadcasts of major propaganda channels like Russia 1 and Russia 24, along with over 20 other channels, were taken offline.
The hacking of VGTRK made it to the live news broadcast—at 05:12 AM, their transmission was abruptly interrupted.
According to Agency, from 6:00 to 10:25 AM, the 24-hour news channel Russia 24 only aired archival footage, particularly about Crimea.
The anonymous pro-Ukrainian hacker group Sudo rm-RF claimed responsibility for the attack in their Twitter account, stating that the hack was timed to coincide with Putin's birthday.
In 2022, Sudo rm-RF also claimed responsibility for hacking RuTube, which resulted in the "complete deletion of the site's code," causing the video hosting platform to go offline for several days. The attacks share a similar pattern—according to Gazeta.ru, citing a source, today's hack of VGTRK saw hackers "wipe everything from the servers, including backup copies."
