Hackers Are Helping Ukraine Fight Russia
Military hardware and troop morale aren’t Russia’s only areas of weakness
Editorial rights purchased by iStock. Photo by Gorodenkoff.
In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, a group known as DDoSecrets (Distributed Denial of Secrets) released a large amount of data from US law enforcement agencies to the public. This same group is now releasing data from various Russian organizations.
DDoSecrets is known as a “transparency collective.” Much of the data they receive comes from anonymous hackers. Once the collective receives the data, they publish it via BitTorrent. BitTorrent takes a large file and converts it into many smaller pieces, called “torrents.” Torrents can be downloaded faster than HTTP files, which is particularly important when a lot of people are accessing the data simultaneously.
Another advantage to BitTorrent is that it doesn’t rely on a central server. This is critical because that means even if their website is down, their data can still be accessed.
The practical benefits of this system are enormous because once the data is out there, it’s out there. As sophisticated as Russian hackers are, they can’t remove their published data simply by taking down a website. And a lot of Russian data has been published since Putin made the very bad decision to invade Ukraine.
Contributors to DDoSecrets range from individual hackers (who may or may not provide contact information) to larger public groups with an active social media presence. Network Battalion 65 is one of the latter. They’ve made no secret of their motivation.
Here is one of their recent tweets, sent to CorpMSP, a Russian business they hacked:
Here is another of their tweets, sent to a Russian bank about a week ago:
I find it both heartening and inspiring to see hackers working to help Ukraine. In an era where American democracy is in peril, Ukraine is a beacon of hope. They are also a shining example of what a democracy can be before it becomes corrupted by self-serving politicians, lobbyists, and inherent conflicts of interest designed to keep the powerful in power and the rest of us in our place.
That’s probably why so many people and organizations have joined the fight to save Ukraine. The list of volunteers is long and includes many former US military personnel (most notable in my mind is Malcolm Nance, also a former MSNBC analyst.)
The importance of former military personnel in Ukraine cannot be overstated. That’s because Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 are required to stay and fight — but many are civilians with no military experience. It’s fallen to volunteers from other countries to train them.
World Central Kitchen has also made an enormous difference in the survival rate of both soldiers and civilians in Ukraine. According to their website, they are delivering, “…hundreds of thousands of daily meals and food kits to over 2,000 distribution sites including in recently liberated cities, isolated communities where there is little to no other humanitarian assistance, locations supporting displaced families, and neighborhoods caught in the crossfire of the invasion.”
But it’s the hackers that are giving me the most hope. It’s not enough to give Ukrainians food and weapons, as important as that is. Giving them resources to keep on fighting may not be enough for Ukrainians to win the war — it may only prolong it.
Even data dumps provided by hackers, with highly sensitive and confidential Russian data, won’t provide an immediate end to this war. For one thing, the data is in Russian, and the resources to translate the massive data downloads are not readily available. For this reason, it could take years before the full extent of these data breaches is felt.
Still, if hackers can steal Russian data, they should also be capable of wreaking havoc on Putin’s disinformation war. If it’s true, as many say, that only the Russian people have the power to stop Putin, then hackers should be focused on finding a way to get through to them. Instead of providing data sets that few can make sense of, I’d like to see them put their efforts toward hacking into Russian TV to broadcast, for all Russians to see, the true reality on the ground in Ukraine.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words — and the best part is, no translation is required.
Resources:
Hackers leak Russian data to fight the war in Ukraine
Network Battalion’s Twitter Feed