A group known as Cyberpartisans claims it has infiltrated the network of Belarus’s main security agency and accessed the personnel files of thousands of employees.
Cyberpartisans said on April 26 that the official website of the Belarusian KGB has not been working for more than two months because of its activities.
The group said on Telegram that its hackers penetrated the KGB system in the fall of 2023 and “pumped out all the available information.”
As proof that it breached the agency’s network, Cyberpartisans posted a list of administrators and the website's database and server logs on Telegram.
Belarusian KGB authorities have not commented on the claim, but the agency’s website opened with a page that said the site was “under construction.”
Group coordinator Yuliana Shametavets told the Associated Press that the attack was in response to comments by the agency’s chief, Ivan Tertel, who accused the group this week of plotting attacks on the country's critical infrastructure, including a nuclear power plant.
“The KGB is carrying out the largest political repressions in the history of the country and must answer for it,” said Shametavets, speaking from New York. “We work to save the lives of Belarusians, and not to destroy them, like the repressive Belarusian special services do.”
Shametavets said once the group succeeded in hacking the KGB’s network it was able to download personal files of more than 8,600 KGB employees.
The action is the second claimed by the group in as many weeks. The Cyberpartisans claimed last week to have hacked into the computers and security systems of the Hrodna Azot plant in the region of Homel, a major state-run producer of nitrogen compounds and fertilizers.
The group claimed that it took control of all internal e-mail accounts of as well as hundreds of computers, servers, the security system, and security cameras in the plant’s buildings.
It said it would undo its work in exchange for the release of workers who were arrested during protests against the disputed 2020 presidential election.
Cyberpartisans is a decentralized community of anonymous hackers that first appeared in September 2020.
It has previously hacked into the resources of Belarusian state institutions and law enforcement agencies and publicized classified information in response to state repression against protesters. The group says its activity is part of the struggle against the authoritarian rule of Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Lukashenka, 69, has tightened his grip on the country since the August 2020 election by arresting -- sometimes violently -- tens of thousands of people. Fearing for their safety, most opposition members have fled the country.
