A group of hackers decided to avenge the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with a trio of hussar moves. The first was placing a photo of the deceased politician on official websites. Hackers also broke into a database of Russian prisoners. And according to CNN, they crowned the hacker attack by overwriting the prices in the online prison store.
Russian authorities reported the death of Alexei Navalny in mid-February. The opposition leader died in a penal colony beyond the Arctic Circle. A group of hackers composed of both Russians living abroad and Ukrainians subsequently decided to avenge Navalny’s death. Details about the nature of the hacking attacks have now leaked to the world.
YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED: Alexei Navalny, the biggest critic of Russian President Putin, has died
According to the American CNN, hackers attacked on several virtual fronts. The first hussar piece was the hacking of websites connected to the Russian prison administration, on which the attackers placed photos of Navalny and his wife Yulia Navalna, who became the leader of the opposition movement after her husband’s death.
But the hackers did not stop at symbolic attacks. They also penetrated the Russian prison database and allegedly obtained sensitive data about prisoners, including those who were in the penal colony with Navalny. The infamous “Poljarny volk” (Arctic Wolf) lies about 60 kilometers beyond the Arctic Circle and is considered one of the harshest prisons in Russia.
The escape was supposed to concern 800,000 prisoners. Hackers hope to be able to contact some of them and find out more information about Navalny’s death.
Almost free food
The third hacker attack targeted the online store of JSC Kaluzskoye, where relatives usually buy food for prisoners. These are, for example, noodles or canned meat.
Hackers got into the store’s system and overwrote the price of food. Thanks to this, people could shop up to a hundred times cheaper.
It took the administrators of the prison’s online store several hours to notice that the Russians were only buying food for change. And it took three days for the prison store’s IT staff to fully tick off the discounts provided.
“We were watching the records of access to the online store and it was moving faster and faster and more and more customers were making purchases,” said the hacker, who also provided CNN with data confirming he was involved in the cyber attack.
Expressing political opinions through hacker attacks – so-called hacktivism – has become increasingly common since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. However, the number of Russian hacker attacks directed against Ukraine is also increasing.
YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED: Navalny’s funeral was accompanied by police repression
