Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia have had their internet services interrupted since Friday following a massive distributed denial-of-service attack against Russian ISP firm Lovit claimed by Ukraine's IT Army hacktivist operation, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
Botnets from the U.S., Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, Russia, the Netherlands, and the UK have been leveraged to facilitate the DDoS attack against the critical infrastructure and online systems of Lovit, which has monopolized internet services for PIK-developed apartment complexes, according to Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor, which also noted Lovit's ongoing efforts to remediate issues caused by the overwhelming intrusion. Such a development comes amid escalating pro-Ukraine cyberattacks against Russian ISPs, with Nodex and Rostelecom disclosing attacks claimed by the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance and Silent Crow hacking group, respectively, in January. Separate DDoS attacks by hacktivists have also recently impacted Russian telecommunications firms Beeline and MegaFon.
The FBI has sought public information that would help identify Chinese state-backed Salt Typhoon hackers, reiterating an up to $10 million bounty from the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice Program for any details that would help in the clampdown of the threat operation that has targeted telecommunications providers in the U.S. and other parts of the world, resulting in the compromise of highly sensitive data, reports BleepingComputer.
Reuters reports that the U.S.'s cybersecurity defenses were regarded by former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly to be increasingly vulnerable against threats following President Donald Trump's retaliatory actions against the country's cyber leaders.
