Hacker attacks the German branch of Russian oil giant Rosneft

The German branch of Russian oil giant Rosneft. Image Credit.

According to the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), a cyberattack was launched on the German branch of Russian energy giant Rosneft, with the hacker group Anonymous claiming credit.

The incident was reported by Rosneft Deutschland in the early hours of Saturday morning, according to the BSI.

On Friday, Anonymous released a statement claiming credit for the hack and claiming to have seized 20 gigabytes of data.

According to a report in Der Spiegel magazine, prosecutors in Berlin have begun an inquiry.

Rosneft Deutschland is said to have taken its systems offline as a result. The company's pipelines and refineries are still operational, according to the report.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the BSI warned in early March of a higher danger of cyberattacks and an "enhanced threat environment for Germany," advising companies to beef up their IT security measures.

It has now issued a new cybersecurity alert to other oil and gas industries.

Rosneft Deutschland claims to be responsible for a quarter of all crude oil imports into Germany in recent years, and it owns three refineries in the nation.

Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft, is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Since the commencement of the conflict in Ukraine, the Anonymous hacking group has claimed responsibility for cyberattacks on many Russian institutions, including the Kremlin, the defense ministry, the Duma lower house of parliament, and pro-Kremlin Russian media.

"We didn't want to muck about directly with Russian energy businesses... because certain sanctioned states' energy supply is related to Russia," Anonymous said.

"However, Rosneft Germany is attractive," it added.

Anonymous claimed to have captured a total of 20 gigabytes of data in the attack, including backups of the company's executives' laptops. Furthermore, 59 iPhones and other devices could be remotely deleted. According to the hacker gang, the downloaded data will now be accessed.

Source