Zelensky confirms Ukrainian hackers breached Russia’s emergency alert app in retaliation for earlier attack on Ukraine’s warning system
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Ukrainian hackers carried out a cyberattack on a mobile app Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry uses to send alerts about threats.
Zelensky stressed in an interview with the American broadcaster PBS News that the cyberattack was a response to the hacking of the Ukrainian warning system “Air Alert.”
Zelensky said, “We just responded on the attack.”
The hacking of the “Air Alert” app was “one of the hundreds and thousands of those been made by Russians before on banking system, on pensions, social support, a lot of different support for civilians,” Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian “Air Alert” app was hacked on the evening of November 1. Residents received fake notifications about radiation and chemical hazards, a threat of street fighting, and a message in Russian: “Hi! There will be a nuclear alert across all of Ukraine right now! Don’t worry, the Oreshnik is coming!”
In the early hours of November 2, a cyberattack hit a mobile app belonging to Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry. Its users received notifications claiming that “nuclear warheads” had been launched “at all regions” of the country.
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