Killnet targeted US healthcare sector organization

In their quest to support the Russian government, Killnet started targeting organizations in the US healthcare sector.

Pro-Russian threat actor group Killnet decided to advance their political goals by targeting American hospitals and healthcare organizations, claim the US Department of Health and Human Services Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3).

The group, most known for launching coordinated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, targeted multiple counties supporting Ukraine after neighboring Russia invaded the country on February 24.

“HC3 is closely tracking hacktivist groups which have previously affected a wide range of countries and industries, including the United States Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) sector. One of these hacktivist groups—dubbed ‘‘KillNet’’—recently targeted a US organization in the healthcare industry,” US authorities claim.

According to the HC3’s alert, Killmilk, a senior member of the Killnet group, has threatened to sell Americans’ health and personal data because of the continuous US support for Ukraine. The group has also claimed it has breached a US-based healthcare organization that supports US military members.

While attacks by Killnet rarely cause major damage, they can cause service outages for several hours, heavily impacting organizations sensitive to downtime, such as hospitals. HC3 notes that while the group's ties to the Russian government are unconfirmed, Killnet should be considered a threat to critical infrastructure organizations.

Political agenda

Pro-Russian hacker group Killnet has been a frequent guest in the media headlines since Russia invaded Ukraine, kickstarting Europe’sEurope’s largest armed conflict since the end of the Second World War.

Even though some of the group’s earlier targets, such as the Eurovision song contest, seemed almost comical, the group got more attention after coordinating an attack against the websites of major US airports.

The websites of three of the top five American airports went down for several hours, signaling a pro-Russian effort to initiate attacks against nations supporting Ukraine.

Before turning to pro-Russian hacktivism, operators of the Killnet botnet offered their services for $1,350 per month – a single botnet had a capacity of 500GB per second and included 15 computers.