Russian Hackers Attack Lithuania
New Cyber Hacks Target NATO Countries
Pro-Russian Hackers claim responsibility for aggressive cyber attacks on NATO countries, especially Lithuania that has recently enforced EU sanctions against the Russian federation.
As of June 27, 2022, Lithuania has been thrown in the cross hairs of an aggressive, ongoing cyber attack – launched by pro-Russian dark web hackers. According to the Baltic nation’s defense ministry, these attacks have relentlessly targeted the websites of government agencies and private companies, and the damage is immeasurable.
Killnet, an acclaimed Russian-speaking hacker ring, has claimed a few of these attacks as their own. They’ve gone as far as to claim the hacks were retaliatory to Lithuania’s blocking of the shipment of goods to the Russian enclave, Kaliningrad, a city nestled between Lithuanian and Polish territory.
These cyber attacks are claimed to have targeted Lithuania’s Secure Data Transfer Network. According to the Lithuanian defense ministry, this communications network was designed for government officials and built to withstand war and other crisis, making this particular attack especially high-risk in any future NATO-Russian dealings.
This is due to Lithuania’s status as a member of NATO, the 30-nation alliance which includes the United States, Germany, and Poland. NATO has been on high alert for pro-Russian hacking since the start of the war.
Further confirming the attack on Lithuania is the country’s National Cyber Security Centre (NKSC), they released an announcement stating that the network was unable to access its usual services, and work was in progress, at the time, to restore it to normal operations.
Ukraine and Russian Hackers Fight Cyber War
Acting NKSC Director Jonas Skardinskas also emphasized that such attacks, and even more aggressive attacks, would most likely continue in the following days – especially against the country’s communications, energy, and financial sectors.
The hack in question was a distributed denial of service attack, a relatively simple hack, but highly effective as it floods websites with fake, harmful traffic in order to take them offline. It is also highly replicable, which is why non-state hackers who carry out cyber attacks for political issues, like Killnet, can have several of these hacks at their disposal at any time.
On that note, they’re not the only ones with access to all kinds of ingenious hacks, as Russia’s hostile invasion of Ukraine has brought out droves of pro-Ukraine and pro-Russian hacking groups, who have caused disruptions to an array of Ukraine and Russia organizations as the two nations continue to fight it out in a bloody war.
Even earlier in the war, the Belarusian Pro-Ukraine group, Cyber-Partisans, allegedly hacked IT systems that support trains transporting Russian soldiers near the front lines in Ukraine.
