Ukrainian hackers block work of Russian nuclear weapons manufacturer

The activists reported this to Ukrinform.

"The successful hunt of the BO Team cyber activists continues. Its next victim was the Internet service provider Vega from the city of Snezhinsk, Chelyabinsk region (the closed administrative-territorial formation Chelyabinsk-70, known since Soviet times). The results exceeded expectations. More than 1173 of the provider's switches and 10 of the company's servers were taken out of action, and the information on them was completely destroyed. As a result, the provision of Internet and communication services to a number of strategic enterprises of the city has been blocked for five days in a row, and the prospects for their full restoration leave much to be desired...", the statement said.

According to the BO Team, which claimed responsibility for the cyberattack, Vega is the only internet provider in the city. At the same time, one of the city's main enterprises, VNIITF (All-Russian Research Institute of Technical Physics), a developer of nuclear munitions, is connected only to this provider.

"The key thing our hackers got was personal data and documents of this plant, which is under sanctions. It is already obvious from them who is helping the institute to circumvent them and how. Eloquent correspondence and comments posted on local social media platforms indicate that the cyberattack could disrupt the state defence procurement order. By the way, BO Team is happy to take full responsibility for this disruption and promises that it will not be the last," the cyber activists said.

They added that the Russian company itself did not find anything better than to simply report that its communication network infrastructure had been attacked, but promised to fix everything by the middle of 17 August.

"However, we believe more in the predictions of the BO Team cyber warriors, who say that it is possible ... but ‘after the rain on Thursday’ and then if ‘the cancer on the mountain will whistle", the activists concluded.

As Ukrinform previously reported, a volunteer hacker community together with cyber specialists from the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine attacked about 100 Russian web resources on 15 July. According to DIU representative Andriy Yusov, this attack on Russian cyberspace was very successful.