While it looks like the war between Ukraine and Russia transitioned into a complete physical conflict, there are still hacking activities that going on. There has been a lot of hacking news recently; from hacking Russian TVs to streaming the Ukrainian anthem to digitally crashing Putin’s yacht into Snake Island.
Declaring the surrender of Ukraine
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has made a warning about the hacker activities that publish fake news on the government and regional authority websites. According to SSU, some of those websites are compromised to publish a declaration of the surrender of Ukraine, which is a lie. The Ukraine State Service for Special Communication and Information Protection (SSSCIP) also shared the announcement in English.
WARNING! ANOTHER FAKE!
The enemy has broken into some sites of regional authorities and local governments and spreads through them lies about the alleged "capitulation and signing of a peace treaty with Russia."
It's a FAKE! pic.twitter.com/KlzBDRZjsI https://t.co/ersCWqhLOh— SSSCIP Ukraine (@dsszzi) March 3, 2022
The Ukrainian Parliament has also stated that the Public Broadcaster News in Kherson might be used to spread similar declarations to break the Ukrainian citizens’ morale to stop the resistance.
Free HermeticRansom decryptor by Crowdstrike and Avast
On the other hand, Avast has released a free decrypting tool for the HermeticRansom ransomware. HermeticRansom was discovered by ESET before the physical invasion of Russia. The ransomware is targeting the Ukrainian infrastructure and systems.
However, according to Crowdstrike, HermeticRansom has flaws and it looks like it was developed in a limited time. They created a script for the decryption process, which was not easy to use for everybody. Then Avast took the script and developed a graphical UI for it so every HermeticRansom victim can use it easily. You can download the decrypting tool see the instructions by following the links below:
Click here to download Avast HermeticRansom decryption tool
Click here to read the instructions for Avast HermeticRansom decryption tool