March 3rd, 2022: Telegram Fuels Cyber Communication

Research from Check Point has identified an increase in Telegram groups during the Russia and Ukraine conflict. Groups assembled, stand on both sides of the conflict with anti-Russian groups as well as mischievous users creating fraudulent Ukrainian support groups. Check Point’s research insight shares, "since the beginning of the war, we have seen tens of groups being created daily. Some groups boast over 250,000 users. CPR estimates that about 23% of the groups observed on Telegram attempt to unite hackers, IT professionals, and other IT “fans” to attack Russian targets in cyberspace. These groups are used to coordinate the attack, decide on targets and share results, even offering to help each other towards the goal." From reports, hackers on both sides have leveraged DDoS attacks, with anti-Russian groups on Telegram observed to specifically call out particular Russian sites to DDoS.