Air raid alert broadcast in Moscow by hackers – officials

Hackers broke into the servers of radio stations and TV channels and dispatched a false air raid alarm in Moscow, Russian emergency services announced on Thursday. The incident happened following a string of similar events in other parts of the country.

According to media reports, TV programming was interrupted by a warning that urged people to “immediately seek shelter.” A similar message was broadcast in Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals, local officials said. 

Last month, a false alarm about the “threat of a missile strike” was aired by radio stations in several Russian regions. The broadcast was reportedly heard in cities in the western part of the country and in the Urals. Officials said at the time that the incident was caused by a cyber attack. 

In January, intruders briefly hijacked TV signals in Crimea and Belgorod Region, which shares a border with Ukraine, broadcasting an excerpt from a speech by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. 

In February, the broadcasts on two radio stations in Crimea were briefly interrupted by a speech by Kirill Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. In a statement, radio Sputnik in Crimea described the hacking as an act of “informational sabotage.”