Russian digital infrastructure crumbles after Ukrainian cyberattack - source

The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine's cyber specialists continue a large-scale attack on Russian digital infrastructure used to support Russia's military aggression against Ukraine. On the third day after the start of the operation, new banks and payment services, social networks, messengers and entertainment resources were added to the list of targets. This was reported by a source of UNN in the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine.

Details

According to the source, the largest Russian banking institutions are currently under attack, including Alfa Bank, SebrBank, Raiffeisen Bank, VTB Bank, RSHB Bank, Rosbank, Gazprombank, T-Bank, and iBank. On the second day of the attack, they were joined by Prismviazbank and Pochta Bank, as well as Avito, a Russian online service for posting ads for goods, real estate, resumes and vacancies.

Today, the Russian social network VK, the Discord messenger, the SBP Rapid Payment System, the National Payment Card System, and the Lampa movie and video viewing site have also been affected.

Some financial institutions, such as Alfa Bank, initially denied that the outage was due to external interference. However, other banks, including VTB, admitted that they were trying to cope with and overcome the consequences of a “large-scale DDOS attack planned from abroad.

However, the online services of financial institutions across the country have been either not working at all or working unstably and with errors for the third day. As a result, customers across Russia are unable to access their personal accounts, pay for services, pay for public transportation, or perform any other financial transactions.

The situation is further complicated by the unstable operation of Internet providers, including Beeline, Megafon, MTS, Tele2, and Rostelecom, which are also under attack by Ukrainian cyber specialists.

According to the hostile media, hackers follow the usual pattern: they scan the victims' infrastructure, find vulnerabilities and then strike. It is reported that users throughout Russia are unable to fully utilize the services of banks.

Some Russian media outlets refer to the current events as the “Internet apocalypse” and admit that they have never experienced cyberattacks of this magnitude before.

Recall

A large-scale cyberattack began in the morning of July 23. As a result of the attack, the operation of payment systems, mobile applications of banks, personal accounts, public transport payment systems, etc. was suspended or significantly hampered.

According to sources in the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, the operation against the financial institutions of the aggressor state continues.