Ukrainian hackers shut down Russian state news agency VGTRK's online broadcasting and streaming services on Monday – president Vladimir Putin's 72nd birthday – as Kremlin officials vowed to bring those responsible for the "unprecedented" cyber attack to justice.
Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed the breach to Russian media and called it "an unprecedented hacker attack on [VGTRK's] digital infrastructure."
VGTRK, which owns and operates five national TV channels, five radio stations, and 80 regional TV and radio networks, initially reported the digital intrusion Monday night, claimed that despite the digital intrusion, "no significant damage was done to the media holding's work."
Later in the day, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told state news org, Interfax, that the cyber attack was part of hybrid war effort, blamed the "collective West," and pledged to raise the issue with the United Nations and UNESCO.
"Who is behind a specific attack will be determined by the competent authorities and departments, but we understand that when the collective West says that it is aiming to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, this includes an attack on the media," Zakharova told reporters.
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"This issue will be raised at international venues, both in the United Nations and in UNESCO, which is literally obliged to pay attention to this … and this topic will also be raised at other international venues," she added.
Russian news outlet Gazeta.ru reported that the pro-Ukraine hacktivist crew "sudo rm -RF" was responsible for the attack. The name is also a Unix/Linux command that will recursively remove all root-owned files and directories – which seems like an appropriate moniker for the hacking crew that also claimed credit for taking down RuTube, Russia's equivalent of YouTube, for three days in 2022.
An anonymous Ukrainian law enforcement official told Politico that the intrusion was a birthday present for Putin.
"Ukrainian hackers congratulated Putin on his birthday by carrying out a large-scale attack on the all-Russian state television and radio broadcasting company," the official declared.
"Employees complained that all information on the servers has been destroyed, even backup copies. Online broadcasting and internal services do not work. There is no internet and telephone connection," he added. ®