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Russian Federal Tax Service hacked by Ukrainian Defence Intelligence

The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine has confirmed a major cyber attack on the Russian Federal Tax Service.

user icon Daniel Croft
Wed, 13 Dec 2023
Russian Federal Tax Service hacked by Ukrainian Defence Intelligence
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According to the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, the attack saw Ukrainian military intelligence breach one of the “protected key central servers of the federal taxation service (FTS of the Russian Federation)” before breaking into over 2,300 of the regional servers of Russia and the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, which is currently occupied by Russia.

Once in, Ukrainian Intelligence infected those servers with malware. In addition, they attacked a Russian IT company called Office.ed-it.ru, which is responsible for servicing the Russian FTS.

“As a result of two cyber attacks, the configuration files, which have been ensuring the functioning of the extensive taxation system of the Russian Federation for years, were completely eliminated – the entire database and its backup copies were destroyed,” said the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.

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The Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine added that the nation’s tax service has been down for four days now, with experts reporting that it could be over a month before services return to normal.

“Communication between the central office in Moscow and the 2,300 Russian territorial departments is paralysed, as well as between the Russia’s federal taxation service and Office.ed-it.ru, which was the tax data centre (data bank).

“In fact, this means a complete destruction of the infrastructure of one of the main state bodies of terrorist Russia and numerous related tax data for a long period.

“Internet traffic of tax data on the scale of the whole of Russia ended up in the hands of the military intelligence of Ukraine.”

This is the second attack that the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine has claimed against Russia, following a reported attack on the Russian agency responsible for aviation safety and recording emergencies, the Rosaviatsia (the Federal Air Transport Agency).

“The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine informs that as a result of a successful complex special operation in cyber space, a large volume of confidential documents of the structural subdivision of the Russian Ministry of Transport – the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) – is now acquired,” said the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.

“The data obtained as a result of hacking and penetration of enemy information systems includes a list of daily reports of Rosaviatsia for the entire Russian Federation for more than a year and a half.”

Ukraine claimed that the confidential documents it had stolen showed that “the civil aviation sector of terrorist Russia is on the verge of collapse”.

Daniel Croft

Daniel Croft

Born in the heart of Western Sydney, Daniel Croft is a passionate journalist with an understanding for and experience writing in the technology space. Having studied at Macquarie University, he joined Momentum Media in 2022, writing across a number of publications including Australian Aviation, Cyber Security Connect and Defence Connect. Outside of writing, Daniel has a keen interest in music, and spends his time playing in bands around Sydney.

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