this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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The Ukrainian government's military intelligence service says it hacked the Russian Federal Taxation Service, wiping the agency's database and backup copies.

Following this operation, carried out by cyber units within Ukraine's Defense Intelligence, military intelligence officers breached Russia's federal taxation service central servers and 2,300 regional servers across Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories.

As Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence says, the repercussions of the cyberattack have been severe, causing a breakdown in communication between Moscow's central office and the 2,300 territorial departments that also got hacked in the attack.

It has led to a virtual collapse of one of Russia's vital governmental agencies with a significant loss of tax-related data, according to GUR, as well as tax data-related internet traffic across Russia falling into the hands of Ukraine's military hackers, as The Record first reported.

"This means a complete destruction of the infrastructure of one of the main state bodies of terrorist Russia and numerous related tax data for a long period," GUR said.

GUR said it hacked Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency last month, gaining access to classified data and leaking it online.

The impact of these cyberattacks underscores Ukraine's increased cyber warfare efforts against Russia, leveraging its military intelligence cyber units to disrupt critical Russian infrastructure.

Summary by smmry.com

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[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 35 points 11 months ago (5 children)

How would a country's tax department not have a backup system that can handle this? Surely they would know they are a prime target, and so have air-gapped backups in addition to an automated backup process?

[–] squirmy_wormy@lemmy.world 35 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Lol dude welcome to software these days.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm wondering how Ukraine know they got all the backups. Maybe they only got one or two levels of backup?

The attack also reportedly resulted in the complete deletion of configuration files crucial for the functionality of Russia's extensive taxation system, wiping out both the main database and its backup copies

Maybe they think they've deleted all copies of a decryption key?

[–] squirmy_wormy@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Software is amazingly fragile if you know what to look for and if you assume someone's running the same setup as 90% of everyone else.

[–] Oderus@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Everyone needs an off-site, offline backup. If not, you're a moron.

[–] squirmy_wormy@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Oh of course, we all know the best practices. And we all follow them to the best of our abilities. That's why hacks are so uncommon.

[–] Alchemy@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

So, having watched russia be absolute morons for like 600 days now, they didn't have a back up, did they?

[–] Vilian@lemmy.ca 18 points 11 months ago

from someone following the war, if the tax department is as competent as the military, yeah, not surprising

also there was a massive outflux of capable people when the war started, IT was one of the biggest

[–] LetterboxPancake@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Valid question. But on the other hand, Russia doesn't seem like they are well organized in anything they do. And normally they're the ones hacking the rest of the world, they probably didn't expect to be on the receiving end.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
  • nobody can admit mistakes unless they accept resignation or defenestration (or both and not necessarily in that order)
[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago

The chaos itself is worth a lot, but beyond that, the thing you have to understand in regimes like Russia is the massive incentive to never admit any kind of failure, which results in an increasing build-up of little lies as you move up the chain of command so that the dictator's close circle can tell him that everything is wonderful, when on the ground it's a disaster of people terrified to admit any kind of fault.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

You assume the system were written this century and could even have those features.

[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Can't wait to never hear another one of their fuckimg stupid Chinese-riddle-threats, fucking hate that shit. Always a ridiculous threat they have zero abillity or intention to see thru

[–] Szymon@lemmy.ca 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Wanna release some info on which GOP politicians are on Russian bankrolls now?

[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That would be a sweet sweet Christmas present.

[–] flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

Surely they sniffed and stole a bunch before wiping? Might not have been viable, but I can hope!

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure they will just restore it from the backup tapes. They weren't so incompetent as to not keep offline backups right?

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Have you not seen Chernobyl aha?

[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 6 points 11 months ago

So how does one hire their services? Asking for a country.

[–] 768@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

This seems like major strike for the Ukraine if true, but I assume the effects of the ensuing chaos might take a bit of time, because taxation data is kinda at the infrastructure planning and maintenance point and infrastructure takes a lot of energy or time to change (ie destroy/demilitarise in this case).

[–] Ildar@lemmy.world -1 points 11 months ago

Just been in tax department, everything works normaly 🤷‍♂️