Revenge action after Navalny's death: Hackers apparently manipulate computer system for Russian prisons

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Remembering Kremlin critics: “Long live Alexei Navalny!”

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series light / IMAGO

Just hours after the death of opposition activist Alexei Navalny became known on February 16, hackers or hacktivists are said to have launched a campaign of revenge against the Russian regime. According to a report by CNN, they broke into a network linked to the Russian prison system and copied data from hundreds of thousands of prisoners and their relatives. This should include telephone numbers and email addresses.

In addition, the perpetrators said they manipulated the system through which relatives can buy food for their imprisoned relatives. Products such as pasta or canned meat suddenly only cost one ruble, around a hundredth of the normal price. It is said to have taken several hours before the operators noticed this and three days before the system administrators were able to raise the prices back to the old level.

The hackers also provided the website of the operator of the prison where Navalny was last held with a photo of him and his wife Yulia, accompanied by the message “Long live Alexei Navalny!”

The hackers' claims can be partially verified

According to CNN reporters who were able to chat with the hackers and received screenshots and data from them, the claims can at least be partially confirmed. Although there are some duplicates in the copied database, it still contains information on hundreds of thousands of people. Using public data, CNN was able to randomly identify some of these people as actually being incarcerated.

According to research, the online shop that the perpetrators claim to have manipulated belongs to the Russian state. On February 19, the operator published a post on the Russian social network VK in which it said that “a technical error” had resulted in “prices of food and everyday goods being incorrectly displayed.” He has not yet responded to a request for comment from CNN.

According to a security expert from the US company SentinelOne, the database appears to be authentic and comes from the online shop's system.

According to the report, at least some of the perpetrators describe themselves as emigrated Russian IT specialists. They would return to Russia "when it is freed from Putin's regime," as they wrote in a message on the hacked online shop site. However, CNN was unable to verify her identity.

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