According to media consultant Igor Palchikovsky, administrators of well-known Telegram channels often use Russian bots to attract attention to ads. Hackers see this vulnerability, so bots need to be urgently removed to protect readers from Russian propaganda.
On July 21, Russian hackers hacked a number of Ukrainian Telegram news channels, broadcasting calls for surrender and accusing President Volodymyr Zelensky of starting the war. Focus gathered everything known about this episode.
The notes included accounts from Russian propagandists. In addition to accusing the president, the authors also recalled a fake story about his wife, Elena Zelenskaya, who allegedly bought a Bugatti Tourbillon luxury car for 4.5 million euros.
The thieves also noted that “the current authorities have caused public suffering and many deaths.”
Russian media Astra reported that the messages were posted at least 1,599 times in at least 754 Telegram channels. The call to surrender also reached pro-Russian channels, such as the public page “Sevastopol Emergency”. Most channels have now removed the hacker messages.
Among the largest channels attacked were “Real Kyiv” (more than 1.2 million subscribers), “All-Seeing Eye” (more than 1.12 million subscribers) and the regional channel Kharkov Live (177 thousand subscribers). Authors of public pages in Ukraine consider the attack to be absolutely meaningless.
“For those who did not understand, my mother’s hackers made the most ridiculous attack on the channels by releasing bots and that’s all,” the Perepichka News channel reported.
Hacking Telegram channels: how to protect yourself from hackers, advice from Gosspetsvyaz
The attack was caused by the hack of FleepBot, an automatic sharing service developed in Russia. After the hack, experts started posting on behalf of the owners on the channels, Gosspetsvyaz said.
To fix the problem, you need to remove the FleepBot bot from the channel managers. It is also worth checking the origin of the software carefully before using it. One way to fix the problem is to contact the government response team CERT-UA.
The FleepBot service stated that its team is working to resolve the issue. In the future, the company’s management will contact the relevant authorities to bring the hackers to justice.
Telegram channels hacked by Russian bots
The main target of the cyber attack turned out to be the Times of Ukraine Telegram channel with 1.5 million subscribers. Media consultant and founder of several Kharkov Telegram channels Igor Palchikovsky published posts on the channel at 3:30 a.m. with the text “F***ed c*** races” and emoticons with swastikas. Suspilny.
“It seemed that they were playing around or testing. Later on other channels it was already a conscious message. It was that at such an hour, the administrators are asleep and can broadcast any garbage so that it hangs on the air until 8:00 in the morning,” says the expert.
The vast majority of Telegram channels use bots to create posts. The standard functionality of Telegram is not enough to create a “button” in advertising posts. We are talking about a picture, text, under which there is a button with the text “Subscribe”, “I am 18 years old” or other. The expert explains that it is Telegram bots that allow you to create such a button.
That’s why Telegram channel owners add a bot to the channel administration for publishing posts. Advertisements are published through such a bot in 99% of cases, and the Russian behind it can post anything he wants to the channel, because the bot has channel administrator rights. The advertiser cannot physically influence the content.
“There are many Telegram sharing bots like this, 95% of them are Russian services. I don’t know that everyone who was attacked is connected to the same FleepBot service,” Palchikovsky said.
The advertiser cannot physically influence this. It boils down to a 99.9% probability that these people are either the owners of FleepBot or someone hacked them.
Let us recall that three hackers from Russia were recently detained in Spain. The hackers participated in DDoS attacks of the group NoName057(16) against the government sector, critical infrastructure and services of Ukraine’s allies.
Ukrainian hackers from Cyber Resistance previously managed to access the mailboxes of employees of the military training center as part of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University. It turned out that the students were preparing for war with NATO.
Source: Focus
Ashley Fitzgerald is an accomplished journalist in the field of technology. She currently works as a writer at 24 news breaker. With a deep understanding of the latest technology developments, Ashley’s writing provides readers with insightful analysis and unique perspectives on the industry.