Russian radio stations broadcast fake air strike warning after hack

Commercial radio stations across Russia on Wednesday morning broadcast warnings about air raids and missile strikes. The Ministry of Emergency Situations said the broadcasts were the “result of a hacker attack.”

Gazprom-Media, Russia’s largest media company and a subsidiary of the state-owned energy corporation Gazprom, said an “attack on the infrastructure of a satellite operator” was to blame and allowed the messages to be broadcast over multiple radio stations, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.

A statement from the Ministry of Emergency Situations said: “This morning in some regions, listeners on the air of radio stations could hear an alarm signal and a text message asking them to go to the shelter.”

The ministry said that as a result of the breach affecting the unnamed satellite, “an unauthorized tie-in is going on the air,” and stressed that the alarm signals “do not correspond to reality.” The statement did not mention Ukraine.

Authorities in Russian districts had to issue public statements to deny the threat of a missile strike. The governments of the Belgorod and Voronezh regions said that they presumed that the attack was conducted “from the Ukrainian side.”

“The goal is to sow panic,” said an official quoted by the Kommersant newspaper.

The authorities in Voronezh described the incident as “a provocation of accomplices of the Kyiv regime and is not true. The situation in the region is under control and without incident.”

On Tuesday, Ukrainian hackers claimed they were responsible for disrupting two media websites during a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It is not known who is to blame for the incident. The Russian government has repeatedly attempted to emphasize the danger that the Russian state and people face as a result of what it calls the special operation in Ukraine.

Last month several Pantsir-S1 mobile anti-aircraft systems were installed on the roofs of buildings in central Moscow, almost 1,000 km north of the frontlines in eastern Ukraine.

Although there have been reports that Ukrainian forces have conducted operations against the Russian military inside of Russian territory, Ukraine does not possess weapons capable of striking Moscow.

Russia blames hackers as commercial radio stations broadcast fake air strike warnings

Fake air raid and missile strike warnings blared from Russian radio stations. Officials blamed the incident on a hack of satellite tech.

The Record from Recorded Future NewsAlexander Martin

The attack is believed to have been carried out by RoughSec and TeamOneFist hacker groups, as the following tweet shows.