A professional-Kremlin cybercrime community has been taken offline after a global regulation enforcement operation disrupted over 100 of its servers, detained two gang members, and issued arrest warrants for seven extra.
The hacking group NoName057(16) has been working since 2022, launching cyber assaults on authorities organisations, media our bodies, important infrastructure, and personal corporations in Ukraine, America, Canada, and throughout Europe in a seeming try and silence voices that the group considers anti-Russian.
Working largely via Telegram channels, NoName057(16) has gained a status for itself by launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults
As an example, earlier this yr, the Nationwide Cyber Safety Heart (NCSC) within the Netherlands described how a number of Dutch organisations had been focused by large-scale DDoS assaults, apparently in retaliation for the nation offering six billion Euros of army support to assist Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression.
In that, and different assaults, NoName057(16) made use of DDoSia – a software designed to co-ordinate DDoS assaults with 1000’s of the group’s supporters.
As Bleeping Laptop describes, NoName057(16)’s supporters obtain cryptocurrency for his or her participation in denial-of-service assaults utilizing DDoSia.
The influence of the DDoS assaults has generally been appreciable, with Eurojust saying that the group has “executed 14 assaults in Germany, a few of them lasting a number of days and affecting round 230 organisations together with arms factories, energy suppliers and authorities organisations”.
European elections have additionally been a goal for NoName057(16), in addition to when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the joint parliament of Switzerland in June 2023, and in the course of the Peace Summit for Ukraine in 2024.
Eurojust says that “most just lately, the Netherlands was focused in the course of the NATO Summit on the finish of June.”
Nevertheless, now regulation enforcement has struck a blow towards NoName057(16). A multinational operation known as “Operation Eastwood” has not solely carried out 24 home searches, made arrests, and seized servers. It has additionally seen
messages despatched by way of Telegram to 1,100 folks taking part within the DDoS assaults and 17 directors, warning them of doable authorized repercussions.
Nevertheless, we might be naive within the excessive to think about that that is the final the world will see of NoName057(16). With key members of the group safely ensconced in Russia, past the attain of Western regulation enforcement businesses, it’s unlikely that they are going to be delivered to justice any time quickly.
This has been a setback for the hacking group, however so long as there may be political will in Moscow to assist the gang’s assaults on Western organisations it’s probably that it’ll rebuild its infrastrutucture, and proceed to recruit members who can have no qualms about launching assaults on web sites 1000’s of miles away.
