Ukrainian intelligence takes down Russia's tax system in major cyber warfare operation
Cyber units of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine have carried out another successful special operation on Russian territory, this time targeting the tax system of the Russian Federation. The press service of the Main Intelligence Directorate reports that during the operation, military intelligence agents managed to infiltrate one of the well-protected central servers of the Federal Tax Service (FTS) of Russia, as well as over 2,300 of its regional servers throughout Russia and on the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea. As a result of the cyber attack, all servers were infected with malicious software. In parallel, the Russian IT company Office.ed-it.ru, which serviced the FTS of Russia, was also attacked using the same method.
Two cyber attacks resulted in the complete destruction of the configuration files that had ensured the functioning of Russia's fragmented tax system for years - the entire database and its backup copies were destroyed, according to the Main Intelligence Directorate.
It is noted that communication between the central office in Moscow and the 2,300 territorial administrations in Russia, as well as between the FTS of Russia and Office.ed-it.ru, which served as a data center for the tax authority, has been paralyzed.
"In fact, we are talking about the complete destruction of the infrastructure of one of the main state agencies of terrorist Russia and numerous accompanying tax data over a long period of time," stated the source.
"The internet traffic of tax data throughout Russia has fallen into the hands of the military intelligence of Ukraine. Russians have been unsuccessfully trying to restore the operation of the tax authorities for the fourth consecutive day. According to experts' estimates, the paralysis in the work of the Russian Federal Tax Service will last for at least a month. At the same time, the full recovery of the tax system of the aggressor state is impossible. The cyber attack by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has become another serious blow to the Kremlin regime, which temporarily lost control over taxes and revenue," emphasized the Main Intelligence Directorate.