This message was broadcast on many radio stations throughout Russia.
Driving to work on a Wednesday morning, residents of Russia heard a signal on the radio about the impending danger. “Attention, an air raid alert has been issued. Everyone take cover immediately. Attention! Attention! Threat of missile attack”.
This message was broadcast on the radio stations Energy FM, Relax FM, Autoradio, Business FM, Humor FM and Comedi Radio. The emergency message reached commercial stations across Russian cities in at least four time zones. Among the affected cities are Belgorod, Stari Oskol, Ufa, Kazan, Novouralsk, Novosibirsk, Pyatigorsk, Tyumen, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod and Magnitogorskand many places in the Moscow region.
As terrified residents packed their belongings into backpacks and wondered where the nearest shelter was, a new message from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations was released: “Hackers broadcast information about the alleged announcement of an airstrike on several commercial radio stations. and the threat of a missile strike. This information is false. Please follow messages from official sources“.
The regional government in Belgorod, a Russian city bordering Ukraine that has seen real attacks in recent months, claims that Ukrainians to blame for hacker attack. However, so far no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Yuriy Peryazev, chief of civil protection of the Sovetsky district in Novosibirsk, denied any missile attacks in Siberia. “Everything is fine with us. There is no air alert. We are solving this problem. It will not happen again in the near future,” Peryazev told Gazprom media.
The hacking attack came after the websites of Russia’s largest state media corporation VGTRK were hacked a day earlier while Vladimir Putin was speaking on the state of the nation. Instead of Putin’s speech, the screen said “Error 500” and that “technical work” was in progress. Ukrainian hacker group IT Armi claimed responsibility for the DDoS cyber attack.
(WORLD)