Ukrainian hacktivists claim a major DDoS attack on Russia’s state-owned railway company

RZD, Russia’s state-owned railway company, suffered a significant denial-of-service attack that forced IT to take its website and applications offline.

RZD said in a Telegram post on 5th July that its “website and mobile application were subjected to a massive hacker attack.” This disrupted online ticketing and passengers were forced to buy tickets at the station counters.

RZD said that it is working hard to resolve the issue and resume normal operations as soon as possible. According to the Record, RZD said that its systems were offline for at least six hours but the company later said it is operating in spite of the ongoing cyber attacks.

RZD added that some of its online services are taking time to come back online due to the increased traffic. At the time of writing, RZD’s website was still not operational.

A group of hacktivists going by the name “IT Army of Ukraine” claimed responsibility for the cyber attack on RZD. In a Telegram post, the group wrote, “Do you hear? For some reason, trains no longer hum in the Russian swamps. How to buy a ticket now? No way, because offline cash registers also seem to have fallen into a stupor. The terrorist state is on its way to the station "Chaos" without stopping.”

The hacktivist group, which also targeted the Belarusian railway network and Russia’s homegrown satellite-based navigation system GLONASS in March this year, added that it doesn’t intend to permanently damage the Russian railway’s website.

“It requires significant effort to prepare an attack on such a target. Even if the website is down only for an hour, it would still have a significant impact on the economy of the aggressor country,” the group added.

The “IT Army of Ukraine”, appeared on the scene in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and has been active ever since. In December last year, it attacked the VTB Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, with a massive DDoS attack that forced the institution to take its website and app offline.

In November, the group of Ukrainian hacktivists also targeted more than 900 Russian organisations, including those who manufactured and supplied military equipment and drones. The Central Bank of Russia, the National Centre for the Development of Artificial Intelligence, and Alfa Bank were targeted by the group as well.