Anonymous continues to play an active role in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. This time, the hacktivist collective claimed to have hacked the German facilities of the Russian energy firm Rosneft, stealing about 20 TB of confidential information.
While some reports about the alleged attack have been shared on various Twitter accounts, a German website says that, if confirmed, the attack on Rosneft would have severe effects on the company’s operations. It should be noted that at present, Rosneft covers about 25% of crude oil imports to Germany, making it a major supplier to various industries.
Shortly after, the incident was confirmed by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), whose representatives noted that the company reported the detection of a computer security incident on Saturday night. The German government offered the support of its agents to investigate the attack and monitor the integrity of the affected networks.
In a forum allegedly operated by Anonymous, the hacker collective condemned the company’s operations, saying they have benefited from the relationship between its executives and Vladimir Putin’s government: “Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is chairman of Roseft’s board of directors in Russia, so he became a close collaborator of Putin for decades,” says the Anonymous report.
The hacktivists also mentioned that Rosneft’s subsidiaries do not appear to have been affected by the sanctions imposed against the energy giant, so they decided to carry out the attack. During the attack, multiple company virtual machines, storage drives and other resources would have been compromised. The attack was probably detected on March 10.
This isn’t the first time Rosneft has been targeted by Anonymous. A couple of months ago, the hacking group launched a powerful denial of service (DoS) attack against the energy company, severely disrupting its operations for an entire weekend.
To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a cyber security and malware researcher. He studied Computer Science and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2006. He is actively working as an cyber security investigator. He also worked for different security companies. His everyday job includes researching about new cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in enterprise security implementation.