Hackers claim to breach database containing thousands of Russian criminal records
A group of hacktivists going by the name RGB-TEAM claimed responsibility for hacking into the website of Russia’s prosecutor general, exposing data on criminal offenses committed in Russia over the past 30 years.
The group published the leaked archive on its Telegram channel on Thursday, stating it holds 100,000 Russian criminal records spanning from 1993 to 2022. The hackers said that this is only part of the data they obtained after hacking the prosecutor general's website.
According to the Russian independent investigative media outlet, Important Stories, which analyzed random samples of leaked data, the database does contain information about real Russians who committed crimes. The outlet reported that a substantial portion of the cases involve theft, drug sales, as well as insults to police officers.
Russia’s prosecutor general has not publicly commented on the leak and has not responded to journalists' requests for comments.
RGB-TEAM is a previously unknown Russian-speaking threat actor. They describe themselves as “a community of anonymous hacktivists fighting for freedom.” The group stated that it doesn’t have enemies in the U.S., Europe, “in the East, or in the West.”
Hack-and-leak operations have been a core part of the ongoing cyber war between Ukraine and Russia, with both sides, as well as hacktivists from other countries, exposing information that could potentially harm their enemy.
READ MORE: Pro-Ukraine hackers leak Russian data in hopes someone will make sense of it
Earlier in February, a group of anti-Kremlin hackers breached a database containing information on hundreds of thousands of Russian prisoners and their relatives and contacts as revenge for the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in an Arctic penal colony.
According to CNN reports, the hacker group, which included Russian expatriates and Ukrainians, also lowered the prices of items such as noodles and canned beef using their access to the Russian prison system’s online commissary.
Daryna Antoniuk
is a reporter for Recorded Future News based in Ukraine. She writes about cybersecurity startups, cyberattacks in Eastern Europe and the state of the cyberwar between Ukraine and Russia. She previously was a tech reporter for Forbes Ukraine. Her work has also been published at Sifted, The Kyiv Independent and The Kyiv Post.