Hacktivists turn Belarusian president’s passport into NFT
Belarusian hacktivist group Cyber Partisans claim to have stolen the passport details of every citizen of Belarus. Hackers turned the ID of the country’s president Aleksandr Lukashenko into an NFT.
Belarusian hacktivist group Cyber Partisans claim to have stolen the passport details of every citizen of Belarus. Hackers turned the ID of the country’s president Aleksandr Lukashenko into an NFT.
The hacker group Belarusian Cyber Partisans said they’re turning the details of the country’s president’s ID into a non-fungible token (NFT). The group announced their intentions via their Twitter and Telegram accounts. The announcement came on the birthday of Lukashenko.
“The dictator has a birthday today - help us ruin it for him! Get our work of art today. A special offer - a New Belarus passport for Lukashenko where he’s behind the bars,” hacktivists said.
The hacktivists shared details of other Belarusian government figures such as Lidia Yermoshina, former head of the country’s Central Election Commission, Natalia Eismant, a press secretary for the president, and Ivan Tertel, the deputy head of the Belarusian KGB.
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Hacktivists uploaded the passport collection on OpeanSea, an NFT marketplace. However, the upload was terminated less than 24 hours after Cyber Partisans uploaded it to the platform. Hacktivists said they’re looking for alternative outlets.
Cyber opposition
The Cyber Partisans have been actively opposing the Lukashenko regime. Dubbed ‘the last dictator in Europe,’ the Belarusian president has been in power since 1994. The most recent presidential election in the country was held in 2020, ending with a disputed victory for Lukashenko.
After numerous reports of electoral fraud, nearly half a million Belarusians went to the streets, protesting the election outcome. Lukashenko employed aggressive force to quell the protests, leading to numerous deaths and arrests of over 30,000 people.
Last year the same hacker group said they accessed the entire ‘АИС Паспорт’ database, with personal details of every Belarusian citizen, including passport photos, home address, and place of work.
They also downloaded the last ten years of emergency calls history, including those of people who reported their co-workers for opposing the regime.
And they hacked the entire police database, including CCTV footage and the work history of individual officers, as well as the tapped phone calls of regime supporters and opponents.
The group has also expressed its support for Ukraine after Russia started a full-scale invasion of the county on 24 February.