New Year's Eve disinformation: details of the December 30 Russian hacker attack on a regional provider
On the evening of December 30, Ukrainian telegram channels massively disseminated information about a hacker attack by Russians on Ukrainian TV channels, during which threats about a possible missile attack by the Oreshnik were broadcast. In about 30 minutes, the news went viral, even though no complaints about content substitution have been received from viewers so far.
It turned out that the Russians had indeed interfered with the work of a regional Internet and television provider in the Kyiv region. The provider reported an "emergency in the network" on its Telegram channel, later adding an update that "some subscribers received false information about the alleged threat of an attack on Ukrainian cities by the aggressor country."
The broadcast was allegedly interrupted for some time by a picture showing the logos of Ukrainian TV channels broadcasting in the "United News" telethon to make the image "convincing." In a text with mistakes in Ukrainian, the Russians warned of a possible attack with an "Oreshnyk," a medium-range ballistic missile, and called to go to the shelter immediately.
After the first stage of the attack, the image substitution, the enemy launched the second stage—an active communication campaign. Around the same time, many Ukrainian Telegram channels picked up the news that "Russian hackers have hacked into Ukrainian TV channels and are threatening to strike with Oreshnyk." Then, pro-Russian Telegram channels and media joined in.
Such an attack demonstrates the vulnerability of Ukrainian media and society as a whole: Russian terrorists need only spread disinformation through a hacker attack on a local provider and thus achieve large-scale panic among the population - all without significant expenditure of technical resources and without the need to "turn off" all TV channels and broadcasters in Ukraine. Therefore, we once again urge both telegram channels that position themselves as full-fledged media and the journalistic community to carefully check any information and contact the press services of the organizations for comments. We are always open to communication and provide feedback promptly. We would also like to thank everyone who acted rationally and contacted us for our position.
As a reminder, over the course of the year, Russians carried out several large-scale attacks on Ukrainian television broadcasting to destabilize society, especially in cities and villages bordering the temporarily occupied regions. In March, the satellite signals of Ukrainian TV channels were actively jammed on the Astra4A and Hotbird13E satellites, which belong to the European telecommunications companies SES and Eutelsat. In addition, on April 22, Russia attacked a TV tower in Kharkiv to disrupt digital television broadcasting (T2) in the Kharkiv region.
We urge Ukrainians to observe information hygiene in order not to help the enemy spread disinformation. All these actions are being taken by Russia to influence the population and spread panic in Ukraine, especially during the Christmas and New Year holidays.
We recommend, if possible, ensuring the reception of TV signals from various alternative sources—T2, cable, OTT, and the Internet (TV channel websites, YouTube).
