Hackers hijack Russian TV to say country has ‘blood on your hands’ for Ukraine war
Hackers disrupted Russia’s Victory Day parade Monday by hijacking TV stations to accuse the nation’s citizens of having “blood on your hands” over the Ukraine war.
The country’s strictly censored cable and satellite TV stations flashed the “No to war” messages Monday just before warmongering President Vladimir Putin made a bloated show of strength in Red Square.
“You have the blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of dead children on your hands,” one of the various slogans also read.
“The TV and the authorities are lying. No to war.”
A Russian news website also showed anti-war material that was deeply critical of Putin, which swiftly disappeared.
It was not immediately clear how the negative articles and messages on TV menus appeared.
However, the secretive vigilante cyber group Anonymous — which previously targeted Russian media — was one of those sharing videos of the TV hack early Monday, without taking direct credit for it.
“Good Morning Moscow,” the hacker collective tweeted in English and Russian, adding the emoticon, “¯(ツ) ⁄ ¯.”
Russian media have been terrified into pro-Kremlin coverage after a new law was passed early in the war threatening 15 years in prison for journalists contradicting the government’s official spin. It forced many foreign media operations to flee the country.
Monday’s hack hit viewers across Russia, East2West News said.
MTS, the largest mobile network operator in Russia, confirmed that many of its channels, including NTV Plus, Rostelecom and Wink, were among those hacked, the news service said.
“A cyberattack was carried out on Russian TV broadcasting channels, because of which subscribers could have extremist inscriptions in the broadcast grid,” MTS said, according to the news service.
With Post wires
