On 22 September 2024, the digital news aggregator of Freedom, a Ukrainian state-owned broadcaster targeting Russian-speaking audiences, was hacked as a result of a mass cyber attack, the broadcaster said in a statement.
According to the statement, the attack took place in two waves in the evening of September 22. The digital news aggregator’s website received more than 30 million access requests in a short time from the territory of Singapore, the United States, Great Britain, Thailand, Germany, Indonesia, France, China, Hong Kong and other countries. Technical specialists at the state-owned media company which Freedom is part of were able to “quickly overcome the problems” created by the attack, the statement published by Freedom said. The aggregator’s website continued to work throughout the duration of the incident, but access to it was restricted to some extent in the countries from which the attack was being carried out.
In its statement, Freedom claimed that “Russian hackers” were “obviously behind the attack, without providing further explanations.