Russian hackers attacked the Freedom TV internal communication system on 14 April, briefly accessing the channel’s corporate chat, Freedom TV reports.
As a result of the attack, logins of some journalists, editors, and other staff of the state-owned Multimedia Platform for International Broadcasting (MPIB) were posted online along with screenshots of some official correspondence.
A Russian hacker group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The MPIB’s technical services and state authorities are working together to address the impact of the attack.
Freedom TV is a Ukrainian state-owned channel for international broadcasting that primarily targets the Russophone audience outside Ukraine. The terrestrial TV channel speaks via satellite, cable, DTH, and IPTV networks of national operators, as well as OTT platforms. The channel is part of the state-owned company Multimedia Platform for International Broadcasting.
Previous attacks on the channel
Russian hackers have repeatedly targeted the FREEDOM TV website. For instance, on 22 September 2024, FREEDOM TV faced a mass DDoS attack on their website.
On 29 January 2024, two websites of the state-owned “International Multimedia Broadcasting Platform of Ukraine” – those of the FREEDOM TV channel and the FREEDOM digital news aggregator – were subjected to a massive DDoS attack. The company believes that Russian hackers could be behind the incident.
On the night of 13 March 2024, the website of the digital news aggregator FREEDOM (part of the state-owned “International Multimedia Broadcasting Platform of Ukraine”) withstood a mass DDoS attack.
On 17 April 2024, FREEDOM TV reported an interference in the channel’s work: the satellite signal was being jammed and the content was temporarily replaced.
On 17 January 2025, the FREEDOM TV website sustained a mass DDoS attack.