Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate hacks Russian tax and customs services

The Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation confirmed a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, describing it as “a complication of information exchange with foreign economic operators.”

The cyberattacks affected several services, including:

• Kontur, a leading Russian developer of digital services for accounting and business;

• Chestny Znak, a national digital marking system;

• GosKlyuch, an electronic signature server.

In addition, hackers from Ukraine’s HUR (Military Intelligence) targeted the website and mobile services of Russian Railways (RZD), causing disruptions in their ticketing systems.

On June 12, the HUR reported that Russian citizens were unable to purchase train tickets through the RZD website and mobile app. The largest number of complaints came from St. Petersburg, Tver, and Sverdlovsk oblasts.

Russian Railways acknowledged the technical difficulties and attributed them to a DDoS attack. The company recommended that citizens purchase tickets at ticket offices instead.

The HUR noted that Russian Railways, along with the tax and customs services of Russia, supports the war against Ukraine and, as such, is a legitimate target for cyberattacks.

In a separate operation, the HUR reported that cyberactivists successfully paralyzed the operations of Orion Telecom, one of the largest internet providers in Siberia. The company’s networks were heavily used by Russian security forces in their aggression against Ukraine. A closed city specializing in uranium mining was left without communication, as Orion Telecom was the sole provider there.

On June 8, Ukrainian intelligence also announced a successful cyberattack on the official Russian Railways website. According to Interfax-Ukraine, the attack involved a “non-standard operation” that disabled the zd.ru system, the official online resource of Russian Railways.