Companies Warned to Remain Alert to Russian Cyberattacks

Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, companies operating in Russia have been warned to remain alert to potential Russian cyberattacks. Now, these companies are battling operations by online activists to bruise corporate reputations amid the invasion. 

A recent public campaign by hacker group Anonymous against Nestlé SA and other companies operating in Russia highlights the increased business risk. The high visibility of hacktivists requires companies to make special efforts in internal response and external crisis communication, cybersecurity and risk experts say.

Scott Algeier, executive director of the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center has said, “ The claim of a breach can cause a significant disruption of operations in a business because they need to put resources into investigating it.”

Anonymous said in a tweet on March 22 that it released 10GB of Nestlé’s internal data, along with its emails, passwords and customer information in retaliation for continuing the company’s business in Russia.

Another hacker group, KelvinSecurity obtained the exposed data through a flowed configuration of a cloud server used by Nestle. The Kelvin representative said that the original plan was to sell the data but later the group decided to release it to collaborate with the hacking operation against Russia.