The mysterious group Anonymous chose to side with Ukraine. The hacker group is responsible for several cyber attacks that destroyed Russian government websites and government-backed news media.
On Monday, several popular Russian media outlets were blocked simultaneously, including the state news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti and the Kommersant newspaper. The main pages temporarily displayed a message opposing the Russian occupation of Ukraine, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.
JUST IN: The websites belonging to the Russian propaganda news media TASS, Izvestia, Fontaka, RBC and Kommersant are hacked by #Anonymous . #OpRussia #OpKremlin #StandWithUkriane #FCKPutin pic.twitter.com/YOoLxOdDA0
- Anonymous TV ?? (@YourAnonTV) February 28, 2022
"Dear citizens. We urge you to stop this madness, do not send boys and men to certain death. Putin forces us to lie and puts us in danger," the message said in Russian. "We are isolated. from all over the world, oil and gas are no longer traded. "In a few years, we will live like in North Korea," the message read.
Anonymous is an international group widely known for various cyber attacks against governments, government institutions and agencies, corporations, Church of Scientology, etc. In its infancy, Anonymous was created as a decentralized community that operated anonymously and coordinated towards a main goal, which was generally fun.
In 2008, Anonymous received tremendous attention after the cyber attack on the Church of Scientology - a group of corporations and organizations defined as a cult or religious movement. At the time, Anonymous attacked the Church of Scientology website.
Later, the target of Anonymous attacks became the government agencies of the US, Israel, Tunisia, Uganda, Islamic State, child pornography sites, copyright infringing agencies, churches, corporations like PayPal, MasterCard and Visa.