On 6 September 2023, a cyber attack was carried out against the Kyiv-based Institute of Mass Information (IMI), a non-governmental organization which monitors and analyzses the situation of media freedom in Ukraine, IMI said in a statement published on its website. According to the group, the incident was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, as a result of which IMI’s website went offline for over an hour. Technicians were later able to restore access to the site. Commenting on the case, IMI’s director Oksana Romaniuk said: “I believe the attack is connected with our publications about Russian crimes against journalists and the media. We will continue to expose and document Russian crimes.”
In its statement, the group also reminded that hackers had previously attempted to gain access to IMI’s website, by trying to exploit a vulnerability in the organization’s newsletter online subscription form. IMI also linked these attacks to its activities on uncovering Russian war crimes. The group’s website was attacked several times following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion: according to IMI, this included but was not limited to DDoS attacks in 2022, on March 25, May 10 and December 22.