Hacker Honeytrap Russian Troops in Joint Site, Base Bombed: Report

Ukrainian hackers have tricked Russian troops into sharing their locations with fake profiles of conventionally attractive women on Facebook and Russian social media sites, the authorities said financial times.

The newspaper conducted an interview with Ukrainian hacker Nikita Knysh, whose cybersecurity firm HackControl – nicknamed Hackyourmom – has launched a cyberwar against Russia since the country’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, recruiting high- and low-level Ukrainian hackers into its group .

Knysh said his group was able to hack Russian TV stations to spread pro-Ukrainian messages, as well as hacking thousands of security and traffic cameras in Belarus and occupied parts of Ukraine to obtain information about the Russian military’s movement receive.

While FT Unable to verify all of the claims, material obtained by the newspaper from government officials and hackers supports some of Knysh’s claims.

Among the hacking feats Knysh claims responsibility for are honeytrapping Russian troops with fake profiles of conventionally attractive women on Facebook and Russian social media sites. According to Knysh, hackers used the fake profiles to fish for Russian troops and trick them into sending photos, which the hackers then geolocated and shared with the Ukrainian military.

“Russians always want to fuck,” Knysh said FT. “You send [a] lots of s*** on ‘girls’ to prove they’re warriors.”

It was also found that fake profiles using the photos of conventionally attractive women as a front were used by the Kremlin to spread pro-Russian propaganda surrounding the war.

In a report released in July, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), an independent think tank focused on disinformation, hate and extremism, identified 10 Twitter accounts that used photos of beauty and fashion influencers to engage viewers in the Middle East and to attract in North Africa.

The accounts – which purported to be managed by women in the Kremlin’s diplomatic or media corps, who wrote in Arabic – had a combined base of nearly 360,000 followers. ISD Executive Director for Africa, Middle East and Asia Moustafa Ayad, writing over the report, said male viewers are “eating up” the content shared by the fake accounts.

“The pro-Kremlin women on Arabic-language Twitter are not only shillings for the state, they also do propaganda,” Ayad said.

But while the Russian fake profiles encouraged ardent nationalism and anti-Western sentiments, and spread Kremlin propaganda far beyond Russia’s borders, the fake profiles used by Ukrainian hackers had an immediate impact on the unfolding war.

Knysh said his team helped identify a Russian military base near the occupied town of Melitopol in southern Ukraine, which was then blown up by Ukrainian artillery.

“My first thought was: I’m effective, I can help my country,” said Maxim, a member of Knysh’s team FT. “Then I realized I want more of it — I want to keep finding more bases.” Ukrainian armed forces refused to discuss the role of hackers in the attack on the Russian base.

It’s not the first time Russians have revealed their location to Ukrainian forces.

According to unconfirmed reports by Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske, a Russian base in Popasna in the eastern Luhansk region was blown up by Ukraine’s HIMARS on August 14 after Russian war correspondent Serhiy Sreda visited the base on August 8.

Sreda reportedly released a photo showing Russian paramilitaries from the Wagner Group had set up a base in an apartment building, which they described as the group’s “headquarters”. One of the photos showed a sign with the address of the nearest air raid shelter at 12 Myronivska Street.

Wagner PMC Telegram channels have confirmed that the paramilitary group has suffered an attack.