Various Russian banks suffered DDoS attacks earlier this week, resulting in a temporary disruption to their mobile applications and websites.
A Russian state-owned bank called VTB revealed on a local media outlet that some of its clients had difficulty using its online services due to an internationally planned operation. Moreover, the Russian Agricultural Bank informed another news outlet that the same attack on Tuesday also targeted it, but the consequences were minimal because the bank adopted a new system that counteracts such campaigns.
In addition, the country’s third largest bank, Gazprombank, stated that its clients had experienced some issues executing transactions in its application as a result of the attacks, but the situation was quickly resolved.
Alfa Bank, Rosbank, and Post Bank are the other confirmed Russian banks that became subjects of the recent attacks.
Ukraine confirmed that they organised the DDoS attacks on the Russian financial industry.
According to reports, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) claimed responsibility for the DDoS attacks on the Russian financial sector.
An alleged source at HUR disclosed in Ukrainian media that the operations also disrupted the process of various Russian payment systems and telecommunication companies. Researchers and concerned parties could not independently confirm the claims, but a HUR official revealed that the attacks will continue and will not stop soon.
Furthermore, a Ukrainian intelligence unit has previously claimed to have infiltrated the networks of Russian firms, including banks and internet service providers.
In an incident reported in October last year, a couple of pro-Ukrainian threat groups claimed to have breached Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest private bank, resulting in the data leak of 30 million bank customers.
In another incident this year, the pro-Ukrainian hacker group Blackjack collaborated with the SBU and allegedly breached a Moscow internet provider in retaliation for a Russian hit on Ukraine’s largest telecom operator, Kyivstar.
However, Russia commonly dismisses or disregards these claims since its cybersecurity groups claim that DDoS attacks are easy to mitigate and cannot cause significant damage that could cripple their country.
Russia remained firm in its actions and missions despite the retaliation of cyberattacks from Ukraine. The geopolitical conflict between the two nations has been ongoing for over a year, but the tension in both physical and digital wars has not decreased.
