TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The decentralized international hacktivist collective Anonymous has hacked into a Russian website.
On Thursday (Feb. 24), Anonymous hacked into the Center for the Protection of Monuments website and uploaded three rogue pages, which were adorned with the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag, containing a number of defacements, including photos of two industrial devices in Russia and one in China that the group had compromised. At the time of publication, the altered pages are still online, but in the event they are removed, Anonymous has saved archived versions of defaced pages No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3.
The first image that appears on the first defaced page is the Anonymous logo, immediately followed by an image of the Guy Fawkes mask. Next, is a video that plays the music video for "Fragile," a Mandopop song sung by Malaysian rapper Namewee (黄明志) and Taiwan-based Australian singer Kimberley Chen (陳芳語).
Next, the words "Operation Samantha Smith" appear, in an apparent reference to the 1980s child peace activist, who is pictured below. They write that the scrapped peace plan has morphed into "Operation Ukraine" and "Operation Russia," with Russia failing to opt for peace, the collective warns, "we will do what we must."
A photo of Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno then appears. He was the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine that fought in the Ukrainian War of Independence from 1917 to 1921.
Nestor Makhno. (Anonymous image)
Three screenshots of a SIMATIC programmable logic controller that has been compromised in China then appears.
SIMATIC controller. (Anonymous image)
A number of Reddit memes then appear, including an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin in heavy makeup and a rainbow behind him. A series of posts asks Redditors to vote for which parts of Russia should declare independence.
A video is also displayed that teaches Ukraine's national anthem with English translation. This is followed by Ukraine's coat of arms and a strange map that appears to show Kuomintang plans for an allied invasion of China and the Soviet Union, that originates in part from Taiwan.
Map showing invasion of China and Soviet Union starting from Taiwan. (Anonymous image)
A representative of Anonymous told Taiwan News that the next five images are screenshots of two different Modbus devices in Russia that the team had hacked into.
One of the hacked Modbus devices. (Anonymous image)
Regarding the collective, the representative emphasized the following: "Anonymous is not a group, not a country, but an amorphous idea. It flows like air, like water, like everything. Let it be known that since its inception, Anonymous never have restrictions that say that only homo sapiens can be part of it." In the defaced page, Anonymous threatened that any further hacks will be "precipitated by Russia's continued failure in recognizing the territorial aggression in itself is nothing but a relic of dark ages in the distant past."
Top of second defaced page. (Anonymous screenshot)
The second inserted page shows photos and the names of deceased passengers from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired in pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine in 2014. The third uploaded page simply shows the Anonymous logo, the Guy Fawkes mask image, and a video that plays the "Circus Theme Song" for a maddening 10 hours.
In a separate attack, Anonymous announced on Friday (Feb. 25), that it managed to briefly take down RT.com through the use of a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS). The Anonymous Twitter account that announced the DDoS attack on RT.com stated that the collective is officially in a cyberwar with the Russian government.
The #Anonymous collective has taken down the website of the #Russian propaganda station RT News.
— Anonymous (@YourAnonOne) February 24, 2022