A Ukrainian resistance movement ATESH has reportedly hacked into Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry application and issued fake messages of a nuclear threat. ATESH, which is understood to operate inside Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine and within Russia itself, sent out the fake messages overnight after an alleged interference by Russian hackers in the operation of the Ukrainian “Air Raid Alert”, UNN reported.
A screenshot circulating on social media shows a message for residents of Voronezh Oblast, dated November 2 at 2.47am. It allegedly announces the launch of nuclear warheads at all regions of Russia.
Russians are urged to stock up on food for three weeks and hide in basements, warning ‘otherwise you’re f*****’. Russian media and local authorities in the regions later confirmed that the Emergency Ministry’s services had been hacked.
There has been no independent confirmation of the attack, however ATESH claimed to have hacked the Russian app.
Hours earlier on the evening of November 1, Ukrainian “Air Raid Alert” app users started receiving false notifications about nuclear, radiation and chemical threats, as well as the danger of street fighting.
Ukrainian officials warned that these messages were untrue. The Kyiv City State Administration assured that there was no radiation threat to the capital, and that the “Kyiv Digital” app and the city’s alert system were operating normally.
Unauthorized interference with the service was considered one of the possible causes of the incident.
Russia has frequently utilised cyber-attacks as a means of interfering with a country.
The Mirror reports that Russian cyber-attacks have a 10% chance of costing the UK economy at least £4billion every single year.
A cyber risk assessment of the UK economy claimed Vladimir Putin’s Russia accounts for as much as 80% of all losses from state-sponsored cyber threats, and just one successful attack could cost every Brit £100.
The analysis was conducted by by Moody’s insurers on behalf of Labour MP Graeme Downie, who warned Brits were paying a “hidden Putin tax” from Russia’s aggression.
Calling for a tough response, he said: “A single Russia-linked cyberattack could cost the UK more than £4 billion. That’s based on a serious but realistic attack, the sort with roughly a one-in-ten chance of happening in any given year.”
