Belarus Cyber-Partisans Hack Country’s Rail System
A hacking group calling itself the Belarusian Cyber-Partisans says it has partially disabled the country’s railways in an attempt to limit movement of Russian forces inside Belarus.
The hackers claimed, on Twitter, to have encrypted some of state-owned Belarusian Railway’s “servers, databases and workstations, to disrupt its operations“. They added they had deliberately not targeted automation or security systems, in order to “avoid emergency situations“. They referred to Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko as a “terrorist,” who had allowed “occupying troops to enter our land“.
The group made two demands before it said it would return the systems to the control of the railway authorities: the release of political prisoners and an end to the presence of Russian troops in the country. “We have encryption keys, and we are ready to return Belarusian Railroad’s systems to normal mode. Our conditions: Release of the 50 political prisoners who are most in need of medical assistance. Preventing the presence of Russian troops on the territory of #Belarus“, they wrote in a 24 January message.
In a subsequent Tweet the following day (see image), the hackers referred to their attack by the name ScorchingHeat, and suggested that part of the reason they were able to compromise the railway network was because “employees frequently used pirated software“. The group has a relatively small presence on Twitter, where it has been active since August last year, with some 2,300 followers. On Telegram it has six accounts, the main one of which has over 64,000 subscribers.
The news comes as Russian troops are massed in abnormally high numbers in the south-west of the country, leading many observers to conclude that the Putin government is planning to invade Ukraine. The Belarus-Ukraine border is some 670 miles in length. Following a contested election in Belarus in 2020, there was a split in international opinion, with the EU, the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK among the nations not recognising Lukashenko’s victory, while Russia and China joined a number of nations, including Syria, Turkey, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Myanmar, in congratulating him on winning a sixth consecutive term.
Angus Batey for MON