IT Army Ukrainian Hacktivist Group Hit ISPs in Occupied Territories

A group of Ukrainian cyber activists claim to have disrupted the operations of several internet providers in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.

Even amid the fighting in numerous parts of Ukraine, the internet service generally remained online. It's easy to understand why Ukrainian activists would want to take it down in Russian-held territories, or at least hit the infrastructure and disrupt the use of online services.

According to a report by TheRecord, a group named IT Army, which has previously hit other online targets in Russia and other surrounding countries that supported the Russian invasion, took to Telegram to claim responsibility for the DDoS attacks.

"We continue targeting internet and telecom providers to disrupt enemy communications," said the group on Telegram. "Today, our intel orchestrated a 'thousand proxies' strike, disabling 'Miranda-media,' 'Krimtelekom,' and 'MirTelekom.' This affects Crimea and occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions. Another blow by our cyber army disrupting enemy military communication at the frontlines."

Some Internet service providers acknowledged the attacks and admitted on Telegramthat they'd been targeted. The first problems appeared Oct. 27, and the ISP services became unavailable.

"The digital services operator 'Miranda-Media' has been experiencing an unprecedented level of DDoS attacks from Ukrainian hacker groups since 9:05 AM on October 27, 2023," said the ISP. "As a result, temporary service unavailability is observed for 'Miranda-Media,' 'Crimea Telecom,' and 'MirTelecom.' The company's technical and IT departments are operating in a heightened state of readiness. All necessary measures are being taken to restore the network's functionality.”

It took the ISP more than three days to fully restore services, but it looks like everything is back to normal. On the other hand, the IT Army continues recruiting hackers and even people invited to download software to participate in various DDoS attacks passively.