The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that it had taken down Cyclops Blink, a botnet controlled by a threat actor known as Sandworm (APT28), which has been linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU.
‘Thanks to our close work with international partners, we were able to detect the infection of thousands of network hardware devices. We were then able to disable the GRU’s control over those devices before the botnet could be weaponized.’ the announcement stated.
In a press conference, US Attorney General Merrick Garland has accused Russia of using similar infrastructure to conduct cyberattacks on Ukraine. However, he noted that ‘fortunately, we could disrupt this botnet before it could be used’.
YouTube’s press service confirmed to Interfax that a recording of a briefing given by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had been removed from the platform.
YouTube explained its decision by stating that the video violates the platform’s policies regarding Ukraine.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecoms regulator, requested that Google lift the restrictions and explain why they were imposed.
Anonymous announced on Twitter that it had hacked the Russian Orthodox Church’s charitable wing and had leaked 15 GB of data, as well as 57,000 emails.
The collective leaked the data via the DDoSecrets platform, and clarified that due to the nature of the stolen information, it is currently only available to journalists and researchers.
The EU targeted crypto wallets, banks, currencies, and trusts in its fifth package of sanctions on Russia. New financial measures include ‘a prohibition on providing high-value crypto-asset services to Russia’ with the aim to close potential loopholes that could allow Russians to move money abroad.
‘Together with the four previous packages, these sanctions will further contribute to ramping up economic pressure on the Kremlin and cripple its ability to finance its invasion of Ukraine,’ reads the statement by the European Commission.
The latest Russian Instagram clone, dubbed ‘Now,’ has gone live on the Russian market.
More than 10,000 accounts were created in the first 7 hours of the app’s launch, according to the app’s Telegram channel.
The Now app is the latest in a series of social platforms launched in recent weeks to replace banned social networks in Russia.
At the request of Russia’s telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor, the Yandex search engine has begun labelling Google resources as violating Russian law.
‘According to the grounding law, we are required to inform users in the search results that the owner of the resource is in violation of Russian legislation if Roskomnadzor introduces the measure. Today, we received a demand from the regulator that requires us to show such a label,’ confirmed the Yandex press service.
Previously, Roskomnadzor announced that it will take ‘informative and economic coercive measures’ against Google. Roskomnadzor will label Google a ‘violator of Russian law’ and prohibit it from advertising.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecoms watchdog, filed an administrative motion against Twitter in a Moscow magistrates’ court over Twitter’s refusal to delete content that is prohibited in Russia, such as Nazi symbolism and attributes, justifications for extremist and terrorist networks’ activities, and instructions for building bombs at home. The hearing is scheduled on 28 April and Twitter faces a fine of up to 4 million rubles.
The Twitter account of the Russian television channel RT has been blocked. According to a notification posted on the Telegram channel, Twitter labelled RT’s tweet regarding an interview with a captive Ukrainian serviceman as a breach of company policies. RT will appeal the decision.
The United States and Europe are concerned that sanctions against Russia’s Kaspersky Lab will increase the risk of Russian cyberattacks against Western countries, according to the the Wall Street Journal.
As a result, discussions about possible sanctions against Kaspersky Lab at the US Department of the Treasury have been pushed back.
Previously, the Federal Communications Commission of the United States has added Kaspersky Lab products to its list of devices and services that pose a national security risk.
According to Facebook’s most recent report, the company has disrupted several covert influence operations aimed at Ukrainians and has taken steps to combat Russian propaganda about the war.
Russia and Belarus, according to the report, engaged in cyber espionage and covert influence operations online. Threat actors were interested in Ukraine’s telecom industry, defence sector, tech platforms, journalists, and activists. The company stopped a phishing campaign called Ghostwriter, which attempted to hack into Ukrainian military personnel’s Facebook accounts.
One of the measures implemented by Meta is the corporate fact-checker, an operations centre with Russian and Ukrainian speakers that monitors war-related topics on the platform. Furthermore, Meta began limiting access to Russian state-controlled media outlets and prevented them from running adverts on its networks.
Facebook has also taken down a Russian-based network that attempted to falsely report people in Ukraine and Russia for different various rule violations, including hate speech, to have their accounts and postings deleted from the platform.
