Anonymous Threatens Companies Still Operating In Russia: Pull Out Or Become A Target

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Anonymous member with a Guy Fawkes mask sitting in front of a laptop with a Ukrain flag decal and Twitter post threatening to attack companies who don't suspend operations in Russia

Photo via @YourAnonTV/Twitter

March 22, 2022, 10:06 am

The hacker group known as “Anonymous” posted an explicit warning to a list of companies that are still conducting business in Russian as the unprovoked invasion ordered by President Vladimir Putin continues. Along with an image showing companies who are allegedly still operating and profiting in the aggressor country, including well-known names like Oreo, Subway, Papa John’s, Burger King, and Chevron, the Anonymous Twitter account issued a threat.

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“We call on all companies that continue to operate in Russia by paying taxes to the budget of the Kremlin’s criminal regime: Pull out of Russia! We give you 48 hours to reflect and withdraw from Russia or else you will be under our target!”

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Two of the companies featured on the image, Halliburton and Schlumberger, both oil giants, suspended operations in Russian before the Anonymous threat was posted.

The hacktivist collective officially declared cyber warfare against Russia not long after the invasion began. They have already reported many attacks against Russian targets, including allegedly disrupting live feeds of Russian state-sponsored news programs in order to broadcast pro-Ukraine messages and show footage of the devastation caused by the war.

According to co-founder of the cybersecurity company Security Discovery, Jeremiah Fowler, who spoke with CNBC, a large portion of the attacks claimed appear to be real, including those on pro-Putin news networks.

“I would mark that as true if I were a fact-checker,” he said. “My partner at Security Discovery, Bob Diachenko, actually captured a state news live feed from a website and filmed the screen, so we were able to validate that they had hacked at least one live feed [with] a pro-Ukrainian message in Russian.”

Others have found their websites hit with what is known as “denial of service attacks,” which essentially flood a site with so much traffic that it crashes. Multiple Russian-owned websites have openly admitted to becoming targets of attacks like these in recent weeks.

Fowler, working with folks from Website Planet, also analyzed 100 online databases belonging to retailers, Russian internet providers, and intergovernmental websites, and found that 92 of them had been compromised. Many of the hacks left behind evidence of pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin sentiment, with malicious software deleting files and randomly renaming others to things like “putin_stop_this_war.”

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The 40-odd companies on the list released by Anonymous can expect the same treatment if they don’t respond to the group’s demands by the deadline, and some have already done so, though whether that was in response to the hackers or general consumer pressure is unclear. However, at the very least, Bridgestone Tires responded directly to the warning to say that they would be ending operations in Russia.

Though many of the companies will likely ignore the threat, with the potential for profits overriding the relatively small amount of damage that this kind of hacking can accomplish, the tweet still called a lot of attention to each and every one of these companies.

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*First Published: March 22, 2022, 10:06 am

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