Anonymous Hacks Major Belarusian Government Websites

The websites of several ministries of Belarus have allegedly been taken down in a new attack, part of the cyberwar Anonymous is waging to help Ukraine. The hacking group declared it’s targeting the Belarusian government for its complicity in the Russian invasion of the neighboring country.

Several Government Sites in Belarus Taken Offline by Anonymous

The websites of the Belarusian ministries of economy, education, and justice, as well as the online platform of the country’s National Center for Legal Information, have been hit by Anonymous, a Twitter account associated with the decentralized hacktivist collective announced.

According to a post recently published by Anonymous TV (@YourAnonTV), the attack is in response to the involvement of Belarus in support of Russia’s ongoing military assault on Ukraine. A few days ago, the authors of the tweet stated that the biggest government websites of Belarus were down. Some of them have already been restored.

Belarus has not sent its own forces to Ukraine but has allowed its closest ally, Russia, to use its territory and infrastructure for what Moscow calls a “special military operation” against the government in Kyiv. While this is the first time Belarusian government websites have been targeted, Anonymous has so far carried out numerous attacks against Russian online resources.

Soon after the Russian army crossed the Ukrainian borders in late February, the hacking group declared a cyberwar on Russia, vowing to disrupt the country’s internet space. It has since hit the websites of the Kremlin, the State Duma, and the Ministry of Defense, attacked Russian TV channels, and released millions of leaked emails.

In March, the hacktivist collective announced it had published 28GB of documents belonging to the Central Bank of Russia, including some of its “secret agreements.” In early May, the Anonymous-affiliated hacking group Network Battalion 65 (NB65) said it had targeted the payment processor Qiwi. Later that month, Russia’s largest banking institution, Sberbank, also suffered a blow.