Hackers gained access to Crime.in.ua and demand new authorities surrender to Russia

A hacker group, which calls itself “CyberBerkut”, gained access to the website Crime.in.ua and placed there an ultimatum to the new authorities of Ukraine – to surrender to Russian occupation within ten days and a .gif of the military-style map of Ukraine with Russia's campaign to take over it. The website's editorial office still controls the hosting server so they took the website offline. Earlier the editorial office was receiving numerous threats of hack due to their coverage of Russian occupation of Ukraine that differed drastically from the Russian propaganda. The threats were also made in regard of the outlet's accounts in social media, first of all, in LifeJournal and in Vkontakte, where Crime.in.ua is followed by a lot of Russian users. The hackers not only gained access to the website, they even started to delete its contents, but the outlet's technical specialists were able to restore it up to March 5. The hackers also tried to break the banking accounts of the person, to whose name the website is registered. The editorial staff believes the attack is related to their unbiased, timely and informed coverage of Russian intervention in Crimea. They plan to submit the complaint with the prosecutor's office.