Clive Robinson •

July 29, 2025 12:44 PM

Hmm,

I would have said that it should have been expected, and whilst annoying and destabilising it’s not life threatening as such.

Or at least not yet… I would not rule out a “False Flag” attack to cover some other activity such as “Intelligence Gathering”.

Which is maybe why the Guardian article cautiously says,

“A statement purporting to be from a hacking group called Silent Crow said it had carried out the operation with a Belarusian group called Cyber Partisans, and linked it to the war in Ukraine.”

So yes it sounds like an anti-vlad attack by “hacktevists”.

But is it?

Ask yourself why the airline and why at this time? Yes it’s very public and yes it’s very embarrassing but is that all it is?

Consider,

“Silent Crow has previously claimed responsibility for attacks this year on a Russian real estate database, a state telecoms company, a large insurer, the Moscow government’s IT department and the Russian office of the South Korean carmaker Kia. Some of these resulted in big data leaks.”

However consider these targets from an Intelligence gathering perspective. Such personal data will say much about Russian armed forces and their families. Especially in the command ranks from captain upwards to the lower staff ranks.

In a way it’s similar to the alleged Chinese hack of the US OPM database, only more current and wide spread.

The attackers will have gained,

1, Financial details
2, Mobile Phone, Email etc details
3, Home address details

And these can be used to not just track the military personnel but their immediate and extended families. Including work addresses and education addresses.

Just the sort of thing you need if you are about to start a revenge terror campaign.

The Russian guard labour will be able to protect only a limited number of the immediate family members of the more senior ranks and have little or no chance with the extended families and lower ranks.

The drone attacks on the Russian bombers has made it abundantly clear that the Ukrainian “specials” can work behind Russian lines for very extended periods of time setting up complex attacks with relative ease so far.

It is “Very Russian” to attack peoples families in this way Putin has personally authorised hundreds of such terror attacks having entire families defenestrated in Russia and targeting individuals in most European and other Western Nations.

Whilst the UK Met Police have more or less ignored atleast 30+ questionable deaths as accidents and suicides, many in the Russian community indicate it is assassination on Putin’s orders.

Oh fun fact, the Ukraine has continued carrying Russian Gas to Europe “under contract” through out the war so far. However those contracts are all ending in the next few months and it’s doubtful the Ukraine will renew them…

This will represent a significant fiscal loss to Russia, but it has given European nations time to put alternative energy sources in place even though they are eye wateringly expensive in Austria, Germany and similar.

Keeping the energy tap on has been critical for the european industrial economy and the wider national economies in the East and South East of Europe.

Hopefully winter coming will be mild because keeping the European Economies going and out of significant inflation is very important to their ability to support the Ukraine.