The hackers targeted Ukrainian radio operator TAVR Media on Thursday to spread fake news that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was hospitalized and is in a critical condition.
Anonymous attackers broadcasted reports that the Ukrainian President was in an intensive care ward and that his duties were being temporarily performed by the Chairman of the Ukrainian parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP) stated.
"Cybercriminals spread information that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is allegedly in intensive care, and his duties are performed by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk," the SSSCIP said in an update.
The Kyiv-based holding firm is one of Ukraine’s largest broadcasters and manages nine major radio stations, including Hit FM, Radio ROKS, KISS FM, Radio RELAX, Melody FM, Nashe Radio, Radio JAZZ, Classic Radio, and Radio Bayraktar.
TavrMedia wrote on Facebook that it is working “to solve the problem,” but did not provide additional details. The company also emphasized that "no information about the health problems of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy is true."
The false reports, which were broadcasted during prime time, between 12 and 2 p.m., also forced Zelenskyy to take to Instagram, stating, "I have never felt as healthy as I do now."
It remains unclear how the hackers breached TAVR Media. Multiple hackers from across the globe have tried to capitalize on the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine to launch a barrage of cyberattacks.
In a related development, the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) also issued a warning regarding macro-laden PowerPoint documents being leveraged to deploy Agent Tesla malware targeting state organizations of Ukraine.
This is not the first instance that hackers have targeted Ukrainian media. According to Cloudflare, online media, publishing, and broadcasting firms were targeted by more distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) in the second quarter of 2022 than in any other industry.
Earlier this year in June, the malicious actors also targeted the Ukrainian streaming service Oll.tv and replaced the broadcast of a football match between Ukraine and Wales with Russian propaganda. In February, Ukraine’s national public broadcaster suffered a DDoS attack, according to its general producer Dmytro Khorkin.