Russian public broadcaster VGTRK has been targeted by “malicious interference” intended to disrupt its radio and TV programming, the network warned on Monday.
National TV channels Rossiya-1, Rossiya-24 and online portals Vesti.ru and Smotrim.ru are among the multiple channels and outlets under the VGTRK media holding umbrella, which publishes and broadcasts in 53 of Russia's languages.
VGTRK online services were subjected to an “unprecedented hacker attack” on the evening of October 7, but no “significant damage” was done to operations, the company said on Telegram.
“Despite attempts to interrupt the broadcasting of federal TV channels and radio stations, everything is working in normal mode,” VGTRK said, adding that its specialists were working to “eliminate the consequences of this malicious interference.”
While broadcasts were not disrupted, some of the conglomerate’s online services, including the live stream on the main website, appear not to have been restored yet.
According to Gazeta.ru, the company’s phones, internet and online broadcasting were affected by the cyber attack. While Smotrim.ru live streams worked normally, attempting to access Rossiya-1 livestream returned a ‘503 Service Unavailable’ error. Some of the pages on VGTRK portals could not load images, either.
VGTRK faced a major cyber attack in June 2022, when hackers presumed to be Ukrainian disrupted content servers for almost an hour and likewise interfered with live streams, while uploading what the company described as “unauthorized extremist content.”
Other Russian media outlets and government websites were also hit by cyber attacks earlier that year, following the outbreak of hostilities with Ukraine.