Killnet — The Big Russian Scam
Tags: security
Published: 2022-03-10 14:53:08

_An interview with a former hacker, social engineer and cybersecurity specialist. The identities of the interviewer and the interviewee were not released._

**What do you know about Killnet, who are they?**

Handwriting and loud slogans are familiar to me.
But now I do not undertake to investigate and put forward hypotheses in this regard.
Russian hackers don't bother me much. Due to some impregnation with the Russian idea and the idea of ​​the Russian answer, which always follows after some kind of shock, I do not take them seriously.
Look, Russian hackers are no different from Mexican hackers. Any group of smart guys can hack this or that site or “put” it.
Of course, due to Slavic roots, Russian hackers can be somewhat resourceful and purposeful - they are more motivated.
But for me, the idea is paramount.

**Do you mean ideology?**

Yes, hacking is in some sense a philosophy and a lifestyle.
Advanced hackers are very wealthy people who can afford independence and following sound ideologies without extortion and terrorism and so on. That is, by not honest methods, by cheating, they can quite honestly earn themselves, from a moral point of view, very decent money.

**Can you give an example?**

For example, steal insider information about a merger or steal inside information about a competitor and his plans, thereby giving the client company a strategic advantage. In this case, everyone quietly gets their “roll”, someone does not receive it, but this is the current business.

**It turns out that Killnet does not have such an ideology?**

Right. They change a lot.
For example, if you have a weapon in your hands and you shoot at a fleeing thief, they applaud you. If you shoot a child, you are condemned. In one case you are a savior, in another you are a criminal. In the case of Killnet, an accomplice.

**You mean participating in DDoS attacks on Ukrainian sites, right?**

Yes exactly.
You see, after the start of the war in Ukraine, Anonymous became the most notorious hacker group. In parallel, Ukrainian hackers together with hackers from all over the world began to do a lot of work.
The main message of any hack, DDoS attack, as sanctions is to stop the flow of funding for the military industry, which produces weapons, from which civilians are then killed.
It is also a way to wake people up and show that any action or inaction has its consequences for every citizen of the country.
Well, this is a way of punishing silence, since RT with more than 150 million visitors a month is a great information resource that could greatly help stop the war, but it contributes to its incitement.
For this reason, the first sites in Russia that were “laid” were the sites of the governmentand news websites, let's call them garbage dumps.

**The first site was just RT, or am I mistaken?**

It is not known for sure. I think RT was not the first, but he was remembered because this attack was publicly announced by Anonymous.

And look, here the ideology and the goal are very clear to me.
Putin began to destroy cities with civilians, hundreds of people died, cities turned into ruins. Anyone who is somehow able to handle a computer, united in a cyber army in order to stop the war. In war, all means are good, therefore, in addition to various spam and attempts to reach people, direct attacks on sites remained predominant - this is very logical and this is a very revealing method.

And in this case, the action of Killnet is not clear to me. At the same time, it’s funny to me that Killnet woke up a week later, proclaimed themselves saviors and put a couple of sites on which no one defended, not to mention the fact that no one visited them during the war.
And on the other hand, I feel contempt for their actions, as well as contempt for Putin's dictatorial regime and his ideas. In this situation, Killnet go hand in hand with Putin, directly increasing the damage to Ukraine to its population, and most importantly, all these actions ultimately do no good to anyone.
This shows detachment from reality and short-sightedness. And that's why the story of Killnet will end with the story of Putin, and it will be the maximum shame.

**What do you think their purpose is?**

Not ready to answer. All their actions resemble banal envy.

**What do you think of their Blockchain product?**

I did not deal with him, by virtue of what I said above.
All that I have seen is a perfect example of a true Russian scam, their own blood brothers.
The service appeared and positions itself as a decentralized botnet. The very idea of ​​a blockchain is applicable to products where it is necessary to store any data forever and is not congruent in a network of connected computers, called a botnet all over the world. That is, even if the blockchain takes place, then 
it definitely does not affect the “weather”. But this is a good eason to multiply the price tag by three.

**Why three?**

From experience, I understand that no one on the market sets such price tags for DDoS power. The price is clearly too high due to the latest heating up by news and also by the history of the blockchain.

Look, this whole commercial idea makes me tender. Like the Dribble design, Cloudflare Firewall and a rather mediocre server whose IP they managed to burn. You can see how the guys are trying to hype, and they did it well, but I don’t see the point in all this.
When the world recovers from the war, their project will very quickly become a thing of the past.

**What do you think of [killnethackers.com](https://killnethackers.com)?**
They mention in their posts that supposedly they are the real Killnet

I can say for sure that they appeared on the network later than the mention of the botnet and the news about the attacks. But, I have heard about Killnet before. There is a possibility that those same hackers with ideology are killnethacker.com.
And killweb.io (killnet.io) are the guys who decided to cut the dough in the hottest spot.

**You are making a big statement.
Do you have any reason to think so?**

For now, this is my guess. I did not conduct an investigation, since now we all have only one priority - the end of the war before it comes to the nuclear.
Everything I've seen so far about Killnet's activities is very far-fetched.
I do not take them seriously because of the rather stereotyped statements and ideas of the Western enemy. All this nonsense coming from the USSR and still pouring out of TVs should already stop.
They proclaimed themselves, promoted themselves, wrote an article on Wikipedia themselves, and as clumsily and illiterately as possible. No ideology, just hype for profit. And how else to call people who, on the deaths of thousands of people, find where to cut down the dough.
It looks like the hacktivists they claim to be - no. Just believe me, there are a lot of indicators showing what kind of people they are. As a social engineer, I perfectly understand how their bluff, self-promotion and manipulation work.
Therefore, killnethacker.com, in my understanding, is a more sensible and promising group, whoever they are and whenever they are born.


**Thanks for the detailed comment and I want to ask you one last question: should you take Killnet seriously or are you afraid of them?**

Soon I will conduct an investigation and we will be able to talk with you again on this topic.
In the meantime, I will say this - there is no need to be afraid of anyone. But you should be afraid of idiots with powerful weapons. Putin is your example.
I don’t presume to judge or condemn, someone picks up a gun, comes to school and shoots children, someone builds a botnet and shoots at everything that moves, someone holds a finger on a nuclear missile launcher with an unknown outcome.
All these people are the plague of this world, the end of which will come anyway.