The group, which is known as “the Cyber Partisans,” successfully breached the systems of the Belarusian government and police. Hacktivists gained access to the personal details of over a million Belarusian citizens, secret phone calls from supporters and opponents of the Lukashenko regime.
The attack was the most significant operation that the group has carried out since its appearance a year ago. Cyber Partisans started their activities with the hack of the homepage for the Belarus president.
“The Cyber Partisan group managed to obtain an undisclosed amount of personal information of Lukashenka’s top brass,” says Andriukaitis, an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “These included members of Lukashenka’s inner circle, Belarusian security forces’ leadership and some KGB employees, including intelligence officers operating in the European Union.”
The Cyber Partisans were able to access the Passport Database, which contains personal details on every citizen in Belarus, including passport photos, address, and work details.
The hackers also stole the last 10 years of emergency call history, which included details on individuals who reported their co-workers as being opponents of the regime.
The hackers were able to access the entire police database, which included CCTV footage of officers and their work history. They also accessed recordings from tapped phones of supporters and opponents of the regime.
“The Cyber Partisan group has a goal to seize enough data about the regime and mess with the regime’s cyber infrastructure enough to initiate a critical moment – a wave of rallies that would overthrow the government,” said Andriukaitis.
“I think this group is actively working on that and it is a matter of luck, time and effort to hack enough critical information about the regime that would reveal their crimes against Belarusian society. I think such efforts might lead to further protests in the future.”
Authorities have tried to downplay the significance of the attacks carried out by the Cyber Partisans. They have described them as ‘terrorists’ and ‘school kids.’ The Interior Ministry recently said its systems were down for a week because of ‘planned preventive work’ and due to the heatwave.
