« Pro-Russian » hackers take revenge on Kaliningrad blockade – RT Russia and former USSR

The self-described “pro-Russian” hacking group Killnet took down numerous Lithuanian government and corporate websites with a major DDoS attack on Monday, two days after warning Vilnius that failure to unblock the rail and road corridor to Russian enclave of Kaliningrad would lead to such an attack.

The hackers boasted of attacking more than 1,000 Lithuanian websites. Among those said to have been offline on Monday or experiencing difficulties were the country’s State Tax Inspectorate, the Integrated System of Administrative Services, the Central State Archives, the websites of the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas, the Lithuanian web of Swedish telecommunications company Telia and leading accounting service provider B1. The Lithuanian Cybersecurity Agency said it noted an increase in DDoS attacks from Friday targeting government agencies, transport services and the financial sector.

The hackers had posted several videos on social media over the weekend warning the government in Vilnius that it had 48 hours to lift the blockade against Kaliningrad or risk a « punctual strike at the heart of the Lithuanian system« affecting »more than 500 companies.A Monday evening message to the « We Are Killnet » Telegram group promised to continue the attack on Tuesday.

The same Telegram group had previously shared a list of Lithuanian target websites, although it was unclear if it was a « wish list » or if all the sites listed had been hacked at some point. given. Some were still accessible, while others were faulty or completely unavailable. The hacking group reportedly encouraged volunteers to join in its DDoS attacks, listing target domains and IP addresses to maximize damage.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda doubled down on the blockade on Sunday, saying « it is quite clear that Lithuania must and will apply EU sanctionsin a Facebook post excluding the possibility of “corridors » Where « appeasement of Russia.” Both Lithuania and the EU insisted that Vilnius was acting in accordance with the bloc’s demands, rather than imposing a decision at the national level.

Moscow has repeatedly ordered the blockade lifted, calling it a violation of international law and warning that maintaining the ban on transit of sanctioned goods « have a serious negative impact on the Lithuanian people.” While Kaliningrad is part of Russia, Lithuania and Poland lie between it and the rest of the country, meaning the only open road left is the sea.

Killnet surfaced in March, posing as a « friendin Russia and attacking the websites of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the neo-Nazi militia Right Sector, and the hacking collective Anonymous, which at the time had just declared « cyber war” about Moscow.

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