Moscow Stock Exchange Under Attack. Reports of attacks and counter attacks from the newest battleground.
Early on the morning of February 28, the website of Moscow Stock Exchange went down. As shareholders and brokers tried to log in, the website was inaccessible.
Initially, the Central Bank of Russia was reluctant in admitting of an attack but later said that the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) would remain closed on that day because the rouble plummeted to a record low against the dollar. Shares of Russian companies listed in London open market also experienced a downward slide to as much as 75%. Bloomberg reported that depositary receipts for Sberbank of Russia PJSC went down as much as 77%, while Gazprom PJSC dropped 62%. The Ukraine IT Army, a crowdsourced group of hackers, enjoying support of Kyiv officials, claimed responsibility of the attack although independent observers could not ascertain this claim. The deputy prime minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, who was the guiding force in the formation of the IT Army, commented in a post on facebook in a celebratory tone, “The mission has been accomplished! Thank you!”
Companies like Cloudflare which track and monitor internet traffic around the globe, noticed that the wave of cyber attacks in recent weeks were all directed towards the east. Most of the attacks were targeting entities in Moscow. Cloudflare spokesman said that there was a marked increase in DDoS attacks whose origin could be traced back to Ukraine. He reiterated, “There was a large increase in bot traffic in Ukraine, also. These two things may be related, and cyber attacks remained relatively calm on .ua (Ukraine) domains.”
On the same day, that is 28th February, the website of Russia’s lender, Sberbank, also went offline. A spokesman for Netblocks, which monitors internet connectivity around the world, told Forbes, “We can confirm the Moscow Exchange is down, but we don’t have the visibility into the incident’s root cause or the extent of the disruption.”
In the aftermath of Russian invasion of Ukraine, the pro west forces imposed sanctions to pressurize Russian economy. And to make matters even more complex for Russia, the IT Army of Ukraine planned a series of attacks on important businesses, government websites, critical assets and state organizations including banks and oil companies. That’s why, when Sberbank’s website went offline, Fedorov celebrated in euphoric excitement: “Sberbank fell!”
In retaliation of attacks on Russian websites, key Ukrainian government websites and banks were targeted. US and its allies, including Ukraine itself, blamed Russia for these cyber attacks. Recenly Romania offered to provide cyber expertise, threat intelligence and technology support “for as long as it is necessary.” Florin Talpes, co-founder and CEO of Bitdefender said, “As proud Romanians and a company of global citizens, we stand with our northern neighbors who bravely fight for their future.
