Ukraine’s Blackjack credited for taking down data center used by Russian military
Ukraine has reportedly destroyed a major data center used by the Russian military and state-owned companies such as Gazprom, Lukoil, and Rosneft.
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Ukraine has reportedly destroyed a major data center used by the Russian military and state-owned companies such as Gazprom, Lukoil, and Rosneft.
Ukrainian hackers linked to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) destroyed a data center used by the Russian military, energy, and telecommunications industries, the news agency Interfax-Ukraine reported, citing an SBU source.
“More than 10,000 legal entities – enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, oil and gas, metallurgical, aerospace industries, as well as telecommunications giants stored their data in the cloud service OwenCloud.ru,” the source was quoted as saying.
According to the source, companies that used the data center included Ural Works of Civil Aviation, NPP Rubin, Ural Plant of Special Machinery, Gazprom, Transgaz, Rosneft, Norilsk Nickel, Rostelecom, Telecom, and Megafon.
The Ukrainian hacker group Blackjack and the cyber department of the SBU have reportedly carried out a joint operation, during which 300TB of data was destroyed.
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“These are 400 virtual and 42 physical servers where internal documentation, backup copies, and other programs used by clients for their operations were stored,” the SBU source said.
A Russian-language message allegedly left by hackers on OwenCloud.ru said that the center’s IT infrastructure was destroyed and data stored on cloud servers deleted. It stated that those working in the interests of the Russian Military of Defense were “legitimate” targets.
“Accomplices of the criminal [Vladimir] Putin regime will be punished,” the message read. The website was no longer accessible at the time of this publication.
The source said that the destruction of the data center was a response to an attack on the Ukrainian data center Perkovyi in January. The same hacker group, Blackjack, breached a Russian water supply company in December, seizing 1.5TB of data and deleting 50TB.
An escalating cyberwar between Ukraine and Russia has also seen Blackjack targeting Russian internet provider M9com in January as a retaliation for a cyberattack on Ukraine’s national telecom provider Kyivstar in December.
Another Ukrainian hacker group, the IT Army of Ukraine, claimed to have taken down the Moscow-based internet provider Qwerty less than a week later.