Cyberattack cripples Russian state media on Putin’s 72nd birthday: report

A significant cyberattack on October 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin's 72nd birthday, disrupted operations at VGTRK, Russia's state-owned media conglomerate, causing widespread outages across the organisation's digital platforms, as per a recent report by Reuters.

According to the report, the attack took down the online services of VGTRK, which operates some of Russia's most prominent national TV and radio stations. The 24-hour news channel Rossiya-24 was also affected, alongside disrupted internal communications throughout the national platforms.

The cyberattack coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin's 72nd birthday, prompting speculation about the motives behind the assault. An unnamed Ukrainian government source claimed responsibility on behalf of Ukrainian hackers, stating that the attack was a symbolic birthday "gift" to Putin, as per the report. Reuters, however, was unable to independently verify this claim.

Early Monday, attempts to access VGTRK's website resulted in a "503 Service Unavailable" error, signalling that the servers were overwhelmed or entirely incapacitated. According to the Russian news outlet Gazeta.ru, the attack not only affected external broadcasts but also crippled VGTRK's internal systems, including its telephony and internet services, with reports indicating that even backup servers were wiped.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the unprecedented scale of the attack, confirming that specialists were working to restore functionality and trace the origins of the hack. Russian authorities have accused what they describe as "the collective West" of launching attacks on Russian media as part of a broader "hybrid war", states the Reuters report. The Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, announced that Moscow would raise the issue in international forums, including UNESCO, which promotes freedom of speech.