IT Army of Ukraine gained access to a 1.5GB archive from Gazprom

Gamaredon CERT-UA warns of a cyber campaign using Dark Crystal RAT to target Ukraine's defense sector

IT Army of Ukraine claims to have breached the infrastructure of the Russian energy giant Gazprom and had access to a 1.5 GB archive.

The collective IT Army of Ukraine announced it has gained access to a 1.5 GB archive belonging to the Russian energy giant Gazprom.

The group of hacktivists announced the hack on their Telegram channel claiming that the archive contains more than 6,000 files of the companies of the Gazprom group.

The archive contains information related to financial and economic activities, reports on testing and drilling, along with implementation and adjustment of automated systems at the Koviktinsky well (Irkutsk region).

“The IT Army of Ukraine gained access to information on the activities of the largest filler of the state budget, and accordingly the main sponsor of terrorism and the invasion of Ukraine — Gazprom.” reads the announcement published on the Telegram channel. “The archive with a capacity of 1.5 GB contains more than 6,000 files of the “Gazprom” group of companies regarding financial and economic activities, namely reports on testing and drilling, implementation and adjustment of automated systems at the Koviktinsky well (Irkutsk region), which is considered one of the largest gas fields Russian federation.”

The IT Army of Ukraine also published a statement of confidentiality included in Gazprom’s agreement.

In April 2022, cybersecurity expert Jeff Carr told CyberNews that cyber operators at the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GURMO) have been conducting computer network operations (CNO) against Gazprom.

“As a result of the breach, they were able to engineer a hack of the pipeline’s pressurization controls that would cause a pipeline to rupture, resulting in a fire.” reported CyberNews.

“It’s unlikely that the company [Gazprom] will acknowledge either the breach of their documents or the successful attacks against its SCADA [Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition] systems,” Carr said. He releases details on the Computer Network Exploitation attack along with samples of documents taken by GURMO’s cyber team.

According to Carr, GURMO was able to exfiltrate almost 1.5 TB of sensitive data from the company.

“The data includes administrative files for Gazprom management, communication requirements for the plants, maps, a massive 3,600 page .pdf on all of the requirements for construction of a new pipeline facility, a work order for an overhaul of the relay protection and automation devices, information on the assignment of the primary communications network of the pipeline as well as the digital radio-relay communication line (CRRL), and much, much more,” Carr added. “A person familiar with pipeline security told me that the typical focus is on the compressor stations where the attacker would change the set points for high and low pressure, and modify the flow rate measuring units,”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Gazprom)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.