Russia-based hacker network targets Ukraine army using Meta; 40 fake accounts neutralised

A pro-Russian hackers group, using Meta’s platform Facebook, targeted prominent public figures, military officials, politicians, and journalists in Ukraine, posing a threat to their security as Russian forces continued assault into Ukrainian cities.

The cyber security team at the tech giant parent of Facebook and Instagram stated in a release that it has managed to deactivate several Russia-linked fake accounts in the last 48 hours and neutralised a network of 40 fake accounts online that targeted the Ukrainians. The Russian hackers launched a social media scheme to undermine Ukraine as the forces put up a fierce battle against the invading Russian troops. 

"They ran websites posing as independent news entities and created fake personas across social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Telegram and also Russian Odnoklassniki and VK," Meta wrote in a blog post on Monday.

It added, in some cases, “They [Russian hackers] used profile pictures that we believe were likely generated using artificial intelligence techniques.”

The Russian linked accounts were indulged in a rigorous social media campaign against Ukraine by websites featuring inauthentic and fake news related to the country’s army and its effort to defend its sovereignty. The Meta informed that the hacker's network was traced back to media organisations in Crimea, which Washington generally links with President Putin’s Russian intelligence services.

They are among the dozens of networks banned in the United States for the 2020 US presidential election Russian collusion that was exposed in the Robert Mueller report. The sites were blocked "on the direction of the leadership of the Russian government”.

Russian 'Ghostwriter'

A hacker identified with the pseudonym ‘ghostwriter’, operating out of Russia, launched a disinformation campaign against the Ukrainian military figures and journalists. He bombarded the key army figures with "phishing" emails that risked compromising security, as it would have them click on deceptive links in an effort to steal log-in credentials, according to Meta's security team.

"We've taken steps to secure accounts that we believe were targeted by this threat actor," said Meta head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher in the blogpost.

”We also blocked phishing domains these hackers used to try to trick people in Ukraine into compromising their online accounts.”

The hackers launched a cyberattack after Facebook banned the Russian state media's adverts and other methods for them to make revenue on the social media platform.