Security News > 2022 > March > Russia-Ukraine War: Phishing, Malware and Hacker Groups Taking Sides

The Ukrainian government attributed the activities to a threat actor tracked as UNC1151, a Minsk-based group whose "Members are officers of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Belarus." In a follow-up update, the agency said the nation-state group also targets its own citizens, while simultaneously setting its sights on Russian entities -.

The development follows a barrage of data wiper and distributed-denial-of-service attacks against Ukrainian government agencies, even as various hacking groups and ransomware syndicates are capitalizing on the chaos to take sides and further their activities.

"The Anonymous collective is officially in cyber war against the Russian government," the decentralized hacktivist group tweeted, adding it "Leaked the database of the Russian Ministry of Defense website."

The Conti ransomware cartel, which recently absorbed the now-shuttered TrickBot trojan, rallied its "Full support" behind the Russian government, threatening to "Strike back at the critical infrastructures of an enemy" should "Anybody will decide to organize a cyber attack or any war activities against Russia."

The group later rephrased its statement to state that "We do not ally with any government and we condemn the ongoing war." But Conti Team also maintained that it "Will use our full capacity to deliver retaliatory measures in case the Western warmongers attempt to target critical infrastructure in Russia or any Russian-speaking region of the world."

Other hacking entities to declare allegiance to Russia are the RedBanditsRU cybercrime group and the lesser-known CoomingProject ransomware program, which pledged to "Help the Russian government if cyber attacks and conduct against Russia."

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2022/02/russia-ukraine-war-phishing-malware-and.html