Russian News Website Hacked After Military Action in Ukraine
Moscow-based Russia Today was hacked and its website was defaced Saturday, March 1, 2014, the news station reported on Twitter.(Russia Today)
A Russian news website was hacked temporarily, one day after the country's military escalated an already tense situation in Ukraine.
The website RT.com, or Russia Today, was hacked this morning, the news site confirmed via its Twitter acount, but did not say who might be responsible. The RT website is the online presence of Russian news RT television network.
RT website has been hacked, we are working to resolve the problem
- RT (@RT_com) March 2, 2014
Screengrabs of the English language website show that the words "Russian" and "Ukrainian" had in some instance been replaced with the word "Nazi."
. @RT_com Website Hacked http://t.co/tPBhsNpenO pic.twitter.com/0YHjaHIGsy
- BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 2, 2014
It took less than an hour for the site to be fixed, but it was unclear whether the hacking was a response to Russian military action Saturday.
Troops in unmarked uniforms took control of airports, key roads, and government buildings Saturday in Crimea, an autonomous region of Ukraine where the majority are ethnic Russians. Today similar troops surrounded a Ukrainian military base on the peninsula.
The Russian government said it was responding to a request from Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksenov for assistance, two days after the Crimean government issued a vote of no-confidence in the interim government in Kiev.