Pro-Russian 'Hacktivists' Temporarily Disrupted Some US State Government Web Sites

"Russian-speaking hackers on Wednesday claimed responsibility for knocking offline state government websites in Colorado, Kentucky and Mississippi, among other states," reports CNN, calling it "the latest example of apparent politically motivated hacking following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.... The websites in Colorado, Kentucky and Mississippi were sporadically available Wednesday morning and afternoon as administrators appeared to try to bring them online."The Kentucky Board of Elections' website, which posts information on how to register to vote, was also temporarily offline on Wednesday, but it was not immediately clear what caused that outage. The board of elections' website is also managed by the Kentucky government, though the hackers did not specifically list the board as a target.... Websites like that of the Kentucky Board of Elections are not directly involved in the casting or counting of votes, but they can provide useful information for voters.... The hacking group claiming responsibility for Wednesday's website outage is known as Killnet and stepped up their activity after Russia's February invasion of Ukraine to target organizations in NATO countries. They are a loose band of so-called "hacktivists" - politically motivated hackers who support the Kremlin but whose ties to that government are unknown. The group also claimed responsibility for briefly downing a US Congress website in July, and for cyberattacks on organizations in Lithuania after the Baltic country blocked the shipment of some goods to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in June.... Officials at the FBI and CISA reiterated this week that any efforts by hackers to breach election infrastructure are "unlikely to result in largescale disruptions or prevent voting." Government Technology supplies some context:Amsterdam-based threat intelligence technology and services provider EclecticIQ's Threat Research team said in a blog post that Killnet appears to only have the capacity to launch DDoS attacks with short-term impact, and falls short of dealing lasting damage to victims' network infrastructure. "Analysts believe that Killnet supporters are novice users with zero or limited experience with DDoS attacks, based on an analysis of Telegram messaging data and open-source reporting," EclecticIQ wrote. CNN described Killnet's typical attacks as "crude hacks that temporarily knock websites offline but don't do further damage to infrastructure. "Killnet thrives off of public attention and bravado, and cybersecurity experts have to strike a balance between being mindful of Killnet's online antics and not hyping a low-level threat."

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