Friday night, unknown persons tried to hack Telegram and Facebook accounts of famous journalists in Yekaterinburg. The Deputy Editor-in-Chief "URA.RU" Anton Olshannikov, PR specialist Platon Mamatov and the Editor-in-Chief of the site "MSTROK" (mstrok.ru) Natalia Vakhonina suffered from the actions of the unknown hacker. In addition, unknown persons attempted to gain access to the telegram channel of the portal "Momenty" (https://tlg.name/s/momenty_ekb/3292). It is interesting to note that all of them actively wrote about the protests against the construction of the temple in Yekaterinburg.
Hackers tried to log into the accounts of journalists from a desktop computer, the IP-address of which is registered in Spain, namely in Madrid. The two-factor authentication stopped hackers, but they managed to get confirmation codes from SMS. One of the victims asked for clarification to his mobile operator to find out how the attackers were able to enter the code, but he received the answer that the office does not "advise on these issues."
The journalists drew attention to the fact that they all actively participated in coverage of the protests related to the construction of the Church of St. Catherine in the Park near the Drama Theater in Yekaterinburg. From May 13 to 18 a number of unauthorized rallies of opponents and supporters of the Cathedral in the public garden took place in Yekaterinburg. About 100 people were detained in four days. After that, President Vladimir Putin intervened in the situation, who invited the local authorities to conduct a survey of citizens about their attitude to the construction project. On May 22, the survey data were published, showing that the majority of Yekaterinburg residents (74%) oppose the construction of a Temple.
The Creator of Telegram Pavel Durov said that Russian authorities tried to hack telegram accounts of Ural journalists. He connects the attack with the protests that continued in Yekaterinburg all last week.
“It reminds us that the authoritarian Government will stop at nothing to violate the privacy of its citizens,” wrote Pavel Durov in his Telegram channel. He emphasized that all hacking attempts failed.
