‘Beware just retribution’: Pro-Ukrainian hackers claim access to Moscow’s municipal register of deeds

A message from a pro-Ukrainian hacker group appeared on the website of Moscow’s municipal register of deeds, MosgorBTI, the night before August 7.

The hackers announced that the registry’s databases had been “destroyed” and that they’d gained access to “all the data on the places of residence and property of the inhabitants of the capital of the damned aggressor country that unleashed a war with a peaceful state.” “Information about civil servants, politicians, military and special services representatives supporting the war with Ukraine has been transferred to the Defense Forces of Ukraine,” the attackers claimed.

The social media links posted by the hackers identified them as IT specialists working for peace in Ukraine. The independent outlet iStories points out that the same group took credit for the largest-ever cyberattack on Rutube in May 2022, when its members had disabled the video platform for two days. The May 2023 cyberattack on the Skolkovo Foundation was also attributed to the same group.

MosgorBTI has confirmed the fact of the cyberattack but denies any data breach. The agency has released a statement assuring users that the site only served for processing paperwork requests and wasn’t directly connected to the registry of deeds data, which reportedly remains secure “in a separate database.”