Wagner-Affiliated Hackers Likely Took Down Russian Satellite ISP

Unknown hackers who claim to be affiliated with the Wagner PMC group have taken down a satellite communications system used by the Russian military, and the system remains down.

Taking down Internet services provided to the military is no small feat. This has happened only once before since the start of the war in Ukraine. In February 2022, Russia successfully attacked Ukraine's Viasat network.

From what little information is available, there are two possible culprits for the satellite operated by Dozor-Teleport. One is a hacktivist group, which is not all that surprising given how many hacktivist attacks have taken place in Russia since the invasion.

Besides the attack itself, the interesting part is that a second group claimed responsibility and it says it's affiliated with Wagner, the infamous mercenary outfit that tried to march on Moscow a week ago.

The information that Wagner might be behind the attacks surfaced on Telegram and Twitter, as posted by user @vx_herm1t, who is part of the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, a community of cyberactivists.

"PMC Wagner has announced that they have taken down the satellite provider Dozor-Teleport and damaged user terminals," noted @vx_herm1t on Twitter. "Their rivalry with the RU MoD is manifesting in an unusual way. This is the second major satellite provider breach after Viasat."

"Confirmed: Metrics show a disruption to satellite internet provider Dozor-Teleport which supplies Russia's FSB, Gazprom, Rosatom and military installations; the incident comes amid a wave of cyberattacks by a group claiming affiliation with Wagner PMC," he explained.

There's no reaction from the Russian government, and it's unclear what Wagner would gain from this attack besides showing that they're still a force to be reckoned with.