Hacktivism Strikes: Navalny’s Death Spurs Prison Store Hack by IT Specialists

TFD – Enter the realm of cyber activism as IT specialists retaliate against Navalny’s demise in Russian custody. Uncover the motivations and methods of these hackers in challenging authoritarian regimes through digital means. Stay updated on the latest developments in hacktivism and its impact on political dissent.

Within hours of opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death in February in a Russian prison, a group of anti-Kremlin hackers went looking for revenge.

Interviews with the hackers, screenshots, and data examined by TFD all indicate that the hackers used their access to a computer network connected to Russia’s jail system to post a picture of Navalny on the compromised prison contractor’s website.

The message on the compromised website said, “Long live Alexey Navalny!” and included a picture of Navalny and his wife Yulia at a political event.

In a startling security lapse, they also seem to have taken possession of a database that includes details on hundreds of thousands of Russian detainees, along with their friends and family. The hackers assert that the database includes information on inmates of the Arctic penal colony, where Navalny passed away on February 16.

According to a hacker claiming to be involved in the breach, the hackers are a mixed nationality group that includes Russian expatriates and Ukrainians. They are sharing this data, which includes the phone numbers and email addresses of prisoners and their relatives, “in the hope that somebody can contact them and help understand what happened to Navalny.”

Furthermore, based on screenshots and videos of purchases from the online store that the hackers posted, they changed the prices of items like noodles and canned beef to one ruble, or roughly $0.01, by using their access to the online commissary of the Russian prison system, where family members purchase food for inmates.

Those products typically cost more than $1.

According to the hacker involved, it took the administrator of the online jail shop several hours to realize that Russians were purchasing food for pennies. According to the hacker’s account, it would take three days for the jail shop’s IT team to completely disable the discounts that the hacker had supplied.

“We were watching the [access logs to the online store] and it just kept scrolling faster and faster with more and more customers making purchases,” the hacker said in an online chat while providing data to TFD corroborating that they were involved in the hack.

The database, according to the hackers, has details on around 800,000 inmates as well as their friends and family. Although there were some duplicate entries in the database, hundreds of thousands of people’s personal information was still included, according to a TFD analysis of the data. TFD was able to cross-reference certain prisoner names from screenshots that the hackers released with individuals who are presently incarcerated in Russia based on public records.

Based on Russian company records TFD examined, the online jail shop that the hackers seem to have compromised is owned by the Russian state and is formally called as JSC Kaluzhskoe. Russia is served by JSC Kaluzhskoe in 34 locations.

JSC Kaluzhskoe, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), and the particular website operators that the hackers allege to have outwitted have all been contacted by TFD for comments.

JSC Kaluzhskoe announced on the russian social media platform VK on February 19, the day after the hackers vandalized the website and replaced it with a photo of Navalny, that there had been a “technical failure” resulting in the “prices for food and basic necessities” being “reflected incorrectly.”

Tom Hegel, a cybersecurity expert with experience analyzing data dumps, said the leaked data showed all signs of being authentic and that it had originated from the hacked prison shop.

The chief threat researcher at US cybersecurity company SentinelOne, Hegel, stated that the hackers “clearly had full blown access to get it all.” “The quantity of photos taken and the information offered is extremely extensive.”

A fresh phase in hacktivism

The online jail shop’s managers received a note from the hacking gang cautioning them not to remove the pro-Navalny content from the website. According to the hacker, the hackers destroyed one of the web administrators’ computer servers in retaliation after they refused.

Charming political figure Navalny, who denounced corruption in the Russian government, passed away under unknown circumstances on February 16 at a prison located in the Yamalo-Nenets region, 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow. According to US President Joe Biden, the US believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is to blame for Navalny’s demise.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, political hacking, or “hacktivism,” has become widespread. A Ukrainian individual exacted retribution in the days that followed the invasion by disclosing a wealth of confidential information from a Russian ransomware company, which revealed the group’s purported ties to Russian intelligence.

Hackers who support Ukraine have entered the conflict, claiming credit for assaults on Russian internet providers and websites that carried a prominent speech by Putin earlier this year.

The war in Ukraine “has undoubtedly begun a new chapter in the use of hacktivism, unprecedented in its current scale,” said Hegel, the SentinelOne researcher. “Hacktivism has emerged as a powerful tool for diverse groups to express their perspectives, rally behind their nations, target perceived adversaries, and attempt to influence the trajectory of the war.”

The statement from self-described Russian expats accompanied the online jail store hack.

One of the prison store websites included a message in Russian that said, “We, IT specialists, left today’s Russia,” according to a screenshot taken on February 18 that TFD examined. “We adore our nation and will return once Putin’s rule is overthrown. We’ll follow this path all the way to the finish.