Russia's military satellites have been hacked and taken offline by a group. OneFist knocked Moscow's spy satellites offline, turning Russian soldiers blind on the frontlines.
Satellite System Gonets have been targeted by hackers and their settings have been programmed incorrectly. Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, is the major shareholder of Gonets.
The satellite system was designed to establish communication with global satellites that could be useful for Russia during the battle.
Hackers Found Misconfiguration in Satellite Systems
A misconfiguration was found in the set up of the satellite systems, which made their entry into the system easy. "I found a misconfiguration in their setup, which allowed us to enter just like any other account," an anonymous member going under the name of OneFist told Cybernews.
Hackers Were Able To Access Database
Despite entering into the system, the hackers could not download the whole database.
"We were able to access the view but not escalate our privileges and download the whole database," said the member.
The incident took place earlier this week, but systems remained offline till October 7. Despite being capable of deleting their data, the hacker stated that they had to do it all one by one as they didn't have full permission to delete the data all at once.
Database Used For Gonets Was Vulnerable To Hackers
"We didn't have full permission, so we had to delete it all by hand – it was exhausting, despite having multiple people in the attack. But it had to be quick, as the admins were monitoring regularly," said the hacker, according to Daily Star.
Russia's Cyber Defenses Are Poor
Russia's cyber defenses are poor and their database used for Gonets was vulnerable to hackers as it was "spread out" across multiple platforms, according to hacker Voltage.
"The story is honestly about how much corruption has seeped into so many areas of the Russian internet. They simply do not take the time to defend their systems in the way that even average security is done," said Voltage, according to Star.
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