A Ukrainian hacking organization connected to the country’s intelligence firm has stolen blueprints to build more than 500 Russian military sites, Ukraine’s military intelligence firm GUR said on Friday.
The group, dubbed “Blackjack”, which has previously been linked to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), hacked into a Russian state enterprise involved in construction work for President Vladimir Putin’s military. Blackjack was able to obtain more than 1.2 terabytes of classified data. Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Ministry of Defense for comment by email.
This knowledge includes maps of more than 500 Russian army bases throughout Russia and in Putin-occupied regions of Ukraine. This includes the Russian army headquarters, air defense facilities, and weapons arsenals.
“Critical data on Russian army facilities that have already been completed, are in structure/restructuring or are planned for structure have been transferred to the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine,” the GUR said on its website.
The GUR added that, as part of the cyber operation Blackjack, all stolen data was deleted from seven Russian servers. Ukrainian news firm Interfax said the hackers also disabled 150 computers.
“In fact, the Russian special structure was left without all the diversity of knowledge and backups of information. Now they will have to build new memory facilities,” Ukrainian police sources told local newspaper Ukrinform.
This progression comes a few days after the hacker organization allegedly carried out a cyberattack against Moscow internet provider M9 Telecom. This left Muscovites without access to the internet, Ukrinform reported at the time.
The publication cited an unnamed source as saying that it was a warm-up attack before a larger one, which would be carried out to take revenge on Russian hackers who infiltrated Ukraine’s communications giant Kyivstar in 2023. Newsweek has yet to verify the source’s claim.
In this attack, Russian hackers had gained access to the personal company formula since at least May 2023. They were to gather intelligence and deliver a mental blow, said Illia Vitiuk, head of the cybersecurity branch of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Reuters earlier this month.
Some 24 million users were without service for several days starting Dec. 12. Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest electronic communications operator, claimed in December that it had been the victim of a harsh hacker attack that led to a “technical failure that caused a cellular connection and web access is temporarily unavailable.
“This attack is a wonderful message, a wonderful warning, not only for Ukraine, but also for the entire Western world to understand that no one is really untouchable,” Vitiuk said.
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Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek journalist based in Kuala Lumpur. She focuses on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel joined Newsweek in 2021 and in the past worked with media outlets such as the Daily Express, The Times, Harper’s BAZAAR, and Grazia. She holds a master’s degree in news journalism from City University of London and a bachelor’s degree in journalism. in Russian language at Queen Mary, University of London. Languages: English, Russian
You can contact Isabel by emailing i. vanbrugen@newsweek. com or following her on X @isabelvanbrugen