Hacking group Anonymous had declared cyber war against Vladimir Putin’s government after he mounted a full-scale attack on Ukraine.
The elusive computer experts issued the stark announcement on their Twitter account on Thursday evening.
They said shortly before 10 pm: ‘The Anonymous collective was officially in cyberwar against the Russian government.’
About 30 minutes later, they announced that they had taken down the website of the Kremlin-backed TV channel RT, which broadcasts in Britain and has been heavily criticised for its coverage.
When a newspaper outlet tried to access the website, it was still unavailable and only displayed an error message that said that the site couldn’t be reached.
The cyberwar declaration raises the possibility that Russia could be subjected to systematic hacking attempts in the coming days.
Prior to the attack on Ukraine on Thursday, the country’s government and banks were targeted by a huge cyberattack that was thought to have been carried out by Russia.
People on social media reacted positively to Anonymous’s cyberwar declaration against Vladimir Putin.
One person wrote: ‘THANK YOU! Now, work on draining their finances.’
Another said: ‘You are awesome, thanks.’
A third wrote: ‘THANK YOU! I love you! The most beautiful thing EVER…’
Anonymous said in their tweet about RT: ‘The #Anonymous collective has taken down the website of the #Russian propaganda station RT News.’
Anonymous has previously targeted groups including the Ku Klux Klan and Islamic revolutionaries.
Members are known as ‘Anons’ and are distinguished by their Guy Fawkes masks.
In July last year, the collective warned Tesla founder Elon Musk that they intended to target him after saying he exerts too much control over the cryptocurrency markets.
It appears that Anonymous has not taken down the site, and it seems to be working okay. Perhaps another ploy to lure more people to connect to their news website?
Anonymous is a decentralised international activist and hacktivist collective and movement mostly known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology.
The thing is you can block any website you want, but you can’t block people’s minds. Once it’s in the media and people have read it, it’s in their minds permanently.
And if Anonymous is hacking websites so that they can screw up Russia’s communication grid, then they’re not doing it very well if we can still get on their website.
The thing is the website might be there because it’s taken down and then put back online again, but it has to keep being taken down because cyberwar is as ruthless as a physical war.
It’s like a game of bashing squirrels. You hit them on their heads and then they pop up again, so you have to keep on doing it, this is why it’s called a cyberwar.
However, if Anonymous were that good, they would have hacked into the computers of nuclear weapons and deactivated them for good, or even hacked the security codes to Vladimir Putin’s residence, but it seems that Anonymous have a lot of work to do, that’s if they do it at all!
But there are a bunch of people who are all for Anonymous and support their cause, including some saying that they should break into their data centres and eradicate their assets, and who would have believed that hackers could end up being heroes of a sort? But let’s see how good Anonymous really are.
After all, Vladimir Putin believes he’s entitled to have everything his own way because he’s a bloodthirsty mad man, and I doubt that Putin will be scared of a few people wearing Halloween masks and random threats over the internet.
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