On 9 May 2024, several Ukrainian TV channels were subjected to cyber attacks as a result of which their content became temporarily unavailable, with some also broadcasting for a few minutes a military parade in Moscow officially celebrating the end of World War II. The cyber attacks were reported on by the TV channels themselves, as well as by Ukrainian media and press freedom groups. Russian sources were accused of having orchestrated the attacks.
At 10.00 a.m., the broadcasts of seven TV channels which form part of the StarLightMedia corporation were hacked, Ukrainian press freedom groups reported. TV channel Inter was also concerned by this attack. The seven StarLightMedia channels (STB, ICTV, Novyi, M, M2, Otse and ICTV2) broadcasted the military parade in Moscow for 18 minutes, with the channels’ correct signal restored at 10:18 a.m. local time. Several more attacks occurred on the media group’s channels throughout the day, as a result of which broadcasts were interrupted at least two more times. The parade was not broadcasted again as a result of these new attacks. TV channel Inter claimed that while it had been hacked too, the parade was not broadcasted on its waves.
On the same day, the broadcasting of Ukraine’s state-owned TV channel Dim was also hacked. The channel broadcasted Russia’s military parade in Moscow for two minutes in total, according to the channel, between 12:18 p.m. and 12:20 p.m. Proper broadcasting, however, only resumed at 1:55 p.m. local time.
Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne also reported on several attempts to hack its signal on May 9, as a result of which broadcasting needed to be interrupted. It was not clear when Supilne was able to return to normal broadcasting. A similar situation occurred at private TV channel Espreso, which reported that it needed to interrupt broadcasts due to hacking attempts. As with Suspilne, it was also not clear how long these broadcasting outages lasted. In the cases of Suspilne and Espreso, it did not seem that hackers were successful in broadcasting the Moscow parade on the channels.
Ukraine’s national broadcasting council later called upon Ukrainian media to swiftly provide it with details and proof of interference in broadcasting, as this would help conduct an international investigation into these cases by a dedicated UN agency, and would help increase broadcasting security at the international level. The broadcasting council reported that the May 9 hacker attacks also concerned TV channels Armiya TV, Kultura, MY-UKRAINE, First Channel, Rada, Svitlo, Sontse and Tviy Serial, without specifying the exact nature of the attacks on these channels.