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On May 9 of all days, hackers flooded Russian online television and other services with messages of peace

2022-05-10T12:15:15.699Z


On May 9 of all days, hackers flooded Russian online television and other services with messages of peace Created: 05/10/2022, 14:05 By: Magdalena von Zumbusch A sign against Putin's military parade on May 9: hackers and Russian journalists risk a lot and spread anti-war messages in Russia. Moscow – On the important Russian holiday, the “Day of Victory” against Nazi Germany on May 9th, critica


On May 9 of all days, hackers flooded Russian online television and other services with messages of peace

Created: 05/10/2022, 14:05

By: Magdalena von Zumbusch

A sign against Putin's military parade on May 9: hackers and Russian journalists risk a lot and spread anti-war messages in Russia.

Moscow – On the important Russian holiday, the “Day of Victory” against Nazi Germany on May 9th, critical articles about President Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine war have appeared on an online platform that is considered to be close to the Kremlin.

Hackers who gained access to various services of the Russian IT giant Yandex also sent messages against the war and for peace.

So while a huge military parade with a speech by Putin was taking place on Red Square, thousands of Russian citizens were receiving critical messages.

Ukraine-News: Peace messages on online services of the IT giant Yandex: "Blood is on your hands"

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion war, the Western media has mainly heard about the danger of Russian hacker attacks on Europe.

However, the Russian state is also increasingly exposed to politically motivated cyber attacks.

Thus, on May 9, the IT giant Yandex became the target of a “political” cyber attack.

Like Google, the service combines many products under one roof, including a search engine and a service that offers television programming.

This is reported by the German Press Agency.

According to information from the dpa, the hackers did not want to paralyze the service, but rather to send messages to the users: The start pages of the programs appeared on the site early Monday, especially Russian television channels such as MTS, NTV-Plus, Rostelecom and Winx (but also the programs of the state channels Channel One and Russia 1) not as usual.

Instead, users of the Yandex programs could read messages on the screens that were critical of Putin, his regime and his war and advocated an end to the war.

"The blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of murdered children is on your hands," read one message seen on the screens.

Or: “Television and the authorities lie.

No to war.”

Russia: Victim of "powerful cyber attack" on May 9 - Russian Youtube ("Rutube")

A hacker attack on the Russian video platform "Rutube", which is comparable to YouTube, may be related to this: It was also the target of a cyber attack on May 9th.

"We are actually confronted with the largest cyber attack in the history of Rutube," the company said, according to dpa in the messenger service Telegram. 

Behind the cyber attack are the same hackers who have "repeatedly attacked the websites of public institutions over the past two months," according to the company.

Restoring access will "take more time than the technicians initially thought," Rutube said.

Ukraine-Russia war – Editors of the “Lenta” platform with a message: “Putin must go”

Articles critical of the regime also appeared on the Kremlin-affiliated online platform Lenta on May 9.

Although they were deleted a little later, the publication made a mark.

Two editors of the online newspaper have now claimed responsibility for the protest.

Now he is probably rid of his job at Lenta, said the previous head of the economics department, Yegor Polyakov, on Monday to the critical medium

Mediazona

.

One of the published articles was entitled something like: “Putin must go.

He started a senseless war and is leading Russia into the abyss.”

A total of around 20 such texts were briefly published on 

Lenta.ru

and can now only be viewed in the platform's web archive.

According to the dpa, all contributions began with the preliminary remark that the material had not been coordinated with the management of the medium.

In order not to be disturbed during the protest action while it was being uploaded, Polyakov and his colleague Alexandra Miroshnikova apparently exchanged the title and text of existing articles on the site.

According to Putin's new media law: Lenta reporters will probably have to face penalties

"The most important reason was conscience," Polyakov says of his actions.

Since independent media can no longer be called up in Russia without alternative Internet access, he and his colleague decided to make their materials accessible to the readers of his medium, said Polyakov.

Nothing is currently known about the legal consequences of the action.

In Russia, however, various media laws were extremely tightened this year: A new law threatens high penalties for alleged "false news" about Russia's armed forces and has already driven various broadcasters and newspapers, including German ones, out of Moscow.

The articles published

by the two

Lenta reporters could well fall under the prohibitions of the new law.

The two 

Lenta.ru

editors thus join the ranks of courageous system-critical Russians, such as the journalist Marina Ovsjannikova.

Shortly after Russia's attack on Ukraine a few weeks ago, it ran with an anti-war poster on the main news program of Russian state television.

(

mvz with dpa

)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-05-10

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