Anonymous leaked 700 GB of Russian government data

Together with two municipal entities, Russia's Ministry of Culture got hacked, resulting in hundreds of gigabytes of data being made public.

Three Russian government institutions lost over 700 GB worth of emails, thanks to a continued by effort hackers affiliated with the Anonymous collective.

According to DDoSecrets, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (446 GB), the City administration of Blagoveshchensk (150 GB), and the Governor's office of the Tver region (116 GB) lost hundreds of thousands of emails to hackers.

Russia's Ministry of Culture was hit particularly badly, losing over 230,000 emails with likely sensitive information as the organization is responsible for state policy regarding art, cinematography, archives, copyright, cultural heritage, and censorship.

The city administration of Blagoveshchensk and the Tver Governor's office had 230,000 and 130,000 emails leaked, respectively.

Tver's Governor is Igor Rudenya, a member of the United Russia party. He's been in office since 2016. Russia's President Vladimir Putin is the de facto leader of the political party.

The leak is just the latest installment in a cascade of 'smash and grab' cyberattacks hackers and cyber activists carried out against Russia over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on the night of February 24.

Recently hackers published close to 437,500 emails from Russian companies Petrovsky Fort, Aerogas, and Forest.

The hacker community started rallying to help Ukraine. Anonymous, Ukraine's IT Army, Hacker Forces, and many other hacktivist groups target Russia's state-owned enterprises and businesses.

According to the United Nations, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has created the 'fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.' Over 10 million people were displaced due to the conflict, with over 4.5 million fleeing the country.

Witness testimonies from Ukrainian towns Russian forces have occupied for close to a month point to severe human rights violations and targeted lethal attacks against civilians.

Reports of "gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights" got Russia suspended from the UN Human Rights Council.