The website of a government agency tasked with promoting Russia’s image abroad has been hijacked by hackers who posted a message with a threat against the state body involved in a campaign to block a popular messaging app.
State media watchdog Roskomnadzor has been enforcing a court order to ban the Telegram messaging service for a month, blocking millions of IP addresses and disrupting a range of unrelated online services in Russia.
A message calling Roskomnadzor “nothing but a bunch of incompetent mindless worms” appeared on a webpage linked to Rossotrudnichestvo, the agency for promoting Russia’s image abroad, for a few hours on Thursday.
Access to Rossotrudnichestvo’s other webpages did not appear to be hampered.
“You shall not be able to continue this pointless vandalism any further. Consider this as our last warning,” read the message by hackers claiming to be Anonymous hacktivists.
The English-language warning was accompanied by a crude comic book-style recommendation for Roskomnadzor to “block itself” captioned in Russian.
The latest hijacking bears similarities to the breach of a Russian state environmental watchdog’s website on May 1.
That hack was accompanied by the image of a cartoon character wearing a Roskomnadzor arm patch using a flamethrower on the “internet,” as well as a symbol of Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s “Digital Resistance” which he declared against political censorship.
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