Anonymous Sudan hacks X to put pressure on Elon Musk over Starlink
On Tuesday morning, a hacking organization by the name of Anonymous Sudan brought down X, formerly known as Twitter, in more than a dozen nations in an effort to persuade Elon Musk to introduce his Starlink service in their nation.Numerous customers were impacted by X’s more than two-hour outage.
The hackers wrote on Telegram, “Make our message reach Elon Musk: ‘Open Starlink in Sudan’.”The most recent victim of the hacker gang’s efforts to “benefit Sudan and Islam” is X.The BBC had many weeks of secret chats with the group on the messaging platform Telegram to learn more about the hackers’ techniques and goal.
The same crude and comparatively simple hacking methods for which the gang is known were used in Tuesday’s attack, according to a member of the group going by the name of Crush, who spoke to the BBC.According to the outage-tracking website Downdetector, customers in the US and the UK reported about 20,000 outages, with a much higher number of individuals probably being impacted.
The so-called DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, according to Hofa, a member of the hacking group, was intended to raise awareness about the civil conflict in Sudan, which is “making the internet very bad and it goes down quite often for us.”Neither X nor Mr. Musk have publicly recognized the interruption that has occurred.
Located in Sudan
Anonymous Many in the cyber-security community have claimed that Sudan is actually a cover for a Russian cyber-military unit that is producing cyber-chaos for the Kremlin.The argument is based on the group’s apparent congruence of goals with other hacking groups in the nation as well as its online support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, the criminal organization has consistently denied being Russian and, for the first time, presented proof of its Sudanese location with the BBC.The leader of the organization and primary spokesperson, Crush, provided evidence by sharing his current location on the Telegram app.Additionally, Crush and Hofa supplied screenshots of their Sudanese passports and other evidence that they are in Sudan.
Although it is possible to fake these things to varied degrees, nothing suggests the hackers are lying following weeks of discussions with the BBC and cyber-security expert Intel Cocktail.Our long-term objective is to demonstrate to the world that Sudanese people, despite their restricted capabilities, have excellent skills in a variety of diverse sectors, according to Crush.
The gang published a letter in June urging the Russian authorities to put an end to the Wagner forces’ ongoing uprising.But Crush argued that “a similar thing happened to our country and Russians stood with us so we wanted to pay them back”, alluding to Russia’s assistance to the Sudanese government in its struggle against the continuing civil conflict.
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Numerous organizations and government websites in France, Nigeria, Israel, and the US have been successfully attacked by Anonymous Sudan since the group first surfaced in January.The gang has been attacking Kenya for the past month under the pretext that it is “meddling in Sudanese affairs.”One attack severely interfered with the public’s ability to access more than 5,000 government services through the nation’s eCitizen portal.
When questioned about the effects on the populace, Crush defended the activities and said: “The reason we hit infrastructure is to teach the country and its rulers a lesson, and yes we have red lines, that is if our attacks hurt a lot of innocents. And yes, we have red lines.The organization has attempted to target hospitals, but to no avail.
The gang says it is carrying out the violent crimes to “defend the Truth, Islam, and Sudan,” but at least twice it has also attempted to demand Bitcoin from its victims.Websites like OnlyFans, Tumblr, and Reddit have all come under fire for allegedly promoting “disgusting smuts and other LGBTQ+ things,” according to the report.
The wave of attacks against American organizations that the US cyber-authority warned “can cost an organization time and money and may impose reputational costs while resources and services are inaccessible” in June brought joy to the hackers.When its most well-known attack in June impacted Microsoft services including Outlook and OneDrive, the tech giant was forced to publish a report with tips for users.
