Charter’97 website came under attack
On December 29 at 5 p.m. Minsk time charter97.org underwent a cyber attack.
Criminals received an access to the administrative part of the content management system, deleted some materials and posted an untruthful article about Andrei Sannikov, an arrested presidential candidate.
According to the technical support of the website, the server and software component of the website had not been cracked. Examination has shown that hackers used a password to the administrative part where news is posted, it does not allow changing scripts and change software component and server’s settings.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to restore some part of the archive (several weeks of December 2011).
The logs of the server have IP addresses from which the malefactors accessed the administrative part of the website. Most of them are Tor nodes, an anonymizer (199.255.209.76) and a direct Belarusian 178.124.157.86 (BY MGTS).
It is possible that the password had been intercepted with the help of a Trojan at one of the computers of the website’s staff. The way of hacking and what was posted at the website later leave no doubts about the mastermind.
“For many years the authorities have been trying to destroy Charter’97 website methodically. The founder of the website Aleh Byabenin was killed, we experienced several criminal cases, searches, confiscation of office equipment; journalists were imprisoned, I personally faced 15 years in prison. Take it from me that we shall live through the today’s attack too, no matter how serious it is. And we shall work even better. A boomerang effect will occur. And some people from the Operative and Analytical centre are sure to be hit in their foreheads,” stated the editor of the website Natallya Radzina.
