Russia warns hacking satellites would be ‘act of WAR’ after Anonymous claimed to have breached space defences
RUSSIA has warned that hacking its satellites is an act of war after the country's space agency was reportedly hit by a cyberattack.
Yesterday hacker group Anonymous claimed it had shutdown Roscosmos so that officials have "no more control over their spy satellites."
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Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin has denied that the agency was breached, but issued a chilling message to anyone who might attempt to do so.
"I want to warn everyone who tries to do it that it is essentially a crime, which should be toughly punished," he told Russian media.
"Because disabling the satellite group of any country is generally a casus belli, that is, a reason to go to war.
"And we will be looking for those who organised it.
"We will send all necessary materials to the Federal Security Service, the Investigative Committee, and the Prosecutor General's Office for relevant criminal cases to be opened."
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It comes as Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stood defiant and vowed Vladimir Putin would pay the price for every dead citizen.
Mr Rogozin has slammed Anonymous as a group of "scammers and petty swindlers".
He previously stated that control of the Russian space industry, orbital group and the Russian International Space Station segment is protected from cyber criminals.
Anonymous has already claimed it successfully breached over 300 Russian websites and offered troops over $53,000 to give up their tanks.
It comes as:
- Kyiv remains under siege as Russia continues to advance across the whole of Ukraine
- Kherson became the first city to be captured by Vladimir Putin's forces amid major bloodshed in Kharkiv, Mariupol and Chernihiv
- Hundreds of hero Ukrainians blocked Putin's troops as they advanced towards Europe's biggest power plant
- Russian soldiers were pictured crying and begging to return home after being captured
- Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov - who bankrolled Everton - had his £600million superyacht seized in Germany
- Russian tycoon Mikhail Watford was found hanged in the garage of his home in the UK
Meanwhile, Russia has pursued other tit-for-tat measures against Western nations in response to sanctions.
Roskosmos said it will no longer co-operate with Germany on joint experiments on the Russian segment of the ISS.
It has also stopped servicing rocket engines for the US.
And the flags of the US, UK and Japan were scrubbed off a rocket due to launch on Friday, making it look "more beautiful" Mr Rogozin said.
Broadband satellites owned by UK Government-backed OneWeb were due to blast off on the rocket until Russia demanded assurances that they would not be used by Western military and called for the “removal of the British Government from the list of shareholders".
But the company's board decided to cut ties, suspending all launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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