Partisans of the 21st century: "True Belarusian underground" hacked into the databases of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

If you believe the local media, President Alexander Lukashenko, when he hears about the tricks of young hackers, loses his temper and demands from the KGB to immediately punish the "impudent".

Sergey Kron

“If you cannot protect information on your computers, then go back to paper media. Write by hand and put it in your drawer, ”the“ daddy ”was indignant at the meeting on August 17.

According to the German Deutsche Welle, which published a long interview with representatives of the Minsk underground (not to be confused with the opposition), this is the only official comment by the authorities that can be associated with the hacking of the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus.

The hack was announced by "Cyberpartisans" - an anonymous team of IT specialists, who, as they themselves claim, had a system with passport data of all Belarusians, audio recordings of wiretapping of security officials and officials, data from the Interior Ministry's own security department and much more, which compromises Lukashenko's regime.

Some of this information has already been posted on the Web. "Cyber partisans" communicate with the audience through the telegram channel of the same name. It has over 77 thousand subscribers. Recently, a Belarusian court declared him “extremist”. But, let's make a reservation right away, the KGB didn’t put a finger on its finger in order to catch at least the most overwhelming underground fighter.

Belarusian "Cyber partisans" were formed in September 2020, shortly after the presidential elections in the country. According to them, they hacked the websites of Belarusian state channels and put on the Internet footage of the arrests of demonstrators, published calls on state sites to go to rallies and disclosed the names of security officials who, in their opinion, were involved in the torture of demonstrators.

The "Cyberpartisans" refuse to discuss their location for security reasons. As well as how their group was formed and the people with what background they are included in it.

A DW correspondent asked a member of the underground: do you realize that database hacking is a real crime?

- We are aware that when the laws were respected in Belarus, our activities could be considered criminal. In 2020, power was usurped. The constitution is grossly violated by the so-called "law enforcement agencies. In this situation, it is our civic duty to resist the seizure of power in the republic.

According to a representative of the "partisan" team, after the hacking of the databases, they counted on "the shooting of stars and the dismissal of the top of the Ministry of Internal Affairs", but this did not happen.

“But we still believe that this will happen, only, probably, with a delay”, Cyberpartisans said in an interview with DW. - We focus on the most vulnerable points of the regime. The strike against the Interior Ministry is of strategic importance. He throws the whole system into disorientation. While the regime is trying to extinguish this conflagration, we are already intensively working on other strikes against the props of the regime. Previously, we dealt with smaller and more targeted hacks. They hacked what they could, for example, websites, various databases in semi-open access, etc. But in the background, we were building up serious cybers and entrenched in the regime's networks.

A lot of time is spent on unsuccessful hacking attempts and preparatory work. In such complex operations, there are rarely blitzkriegs.

Exactly a year ago, some hackers already hacked the website of the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Two new “criminals” have appeared in the “Wanted” section - President Alexander Lukashenko and Interior Minister Yury Karaev. They were also included in the lists of “missing”, and August 9, the day after the presidential elections in Belarus, was indicated as the date of “disappearance”.

In the column “Additional”, Alexander Lukashenko now says: “He is accused of war crimes against the Belarusian people and usurpation of power in the Republic of Belarus”. In the column "Special signs": "Severely limp when walking".

None of the cyber hooligans were caught. But whether these were the guys from the Cyberpartisan group is also not clear.

So far, there has been no public reaction of the security officials to the actions of the "cyber-partisans".

As the interlocutor of DW said, hacking of internal networks takes "many months of work." There are also unsuccessful attempts. The data obtained as a result of the hack is stored in an encrypted format and is "not available directly from the Internet." According to him, third-party "trusted organizations" also have limited access to some databases. Among them - ByPol, ChKB, Punishers of Belarus, NAU , listed one of the members of the team "Cyberpartisans".

- We believe that the KGB is an exclusively punitive body, and their contribution to national security is currently insignificant. They are mainly engaged in repression.

There are almost 39 thousand people in the KGB base "Riots"!

- The entire power apparatus is at the disposal of the regime. They write laws, manage the money of the people. They have all the tools of struggle, and despite all this, they are engaged in bullying civilians. We will publish mainly the data of those who have committed crimes - violence, abuse of authority, complicity in the usurpation of power, etc. We believe that our working methods are perfectly acceptable in the current situation. We are sure that the security forces have already understood that nothing will remain classified. Sooner or later, all information about their crimes will be made public, - said the underground.

For a comment, Novye Izvestia turned to a well-known expert on Belarus, political scientist Andrey Suzdaltsev. Here's what he said:

- They call themselves underground workers, they say that they are conducting an active cyber struggle against the current Belarusian regime. But concrete, real cases, perhaps, are not visible. In Belarus, not everyone knows them. A lot of chatter, self-promotion! They told the whole world that they had opened the network of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. What's next? There is no goal, no program!

Nevertheless, according to Andrei Suzdaltsev, there is a real underground in Belarus. After the mass arrests in July - early August, by September the Minsk underground was largely beheaded, 99% of the activists are in the stage of "stupor". In addition, the underground is isolated, it has extremely weak ties with the Belarusian opposition / emigration, does not receive systemic financial and other support from Vilnius and, we have to admit, does not trust foreign “headquarters”.

Can we assume that Lukashenka has finally won? No, it is not so...

- People were really "driven behind the plinth", but it is strange to demand from them love for the punishers. It should be borne in mind that the Resistance asset, which is tens of thousands of Minsk dwellers, will no longer go out into the street, that is, of course, it will come out if there are real combat leaders in front of the column, who are not able to portray "hearts" and wave flags, but to resist security officials, - the expert noted.

- The authorities in Belarus are tirelessly busy "weeding" the Resistance and literally "uprooting" the leaders. So far, this helps, although both underground and inside the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB understand that it is not autumn 2020 on the calendar and the most decisive and radical groups are out of the reach of the security forces and it is almost impossible to reveal them. This is a professional underground war, - said Andrei Suzdaltsev.

- But if now, by the beginning of the autumn political season of 2021, the Belarusian authorities stop the threat from the Resistance, and the underground will partially begin to control, then nothing can be done against the protest potential of Minsk, which has not gone anywhere. In this regard, we will have to admit that the main trigger for the instant mobilization of the Resistance may be Lukashenka himself, who is constantly balancing on the brink of literally fatal mistakes. It is necessary to take into account that when the power just shakes, when information appears about problems in the presidential residence, hints of a coup, a million people will instantly go out onto the streets of Minsk and even the army cannot cope with it. What will follow is already clear - traffic jams from expensive cars at the exits from the country and a repetition of the evacuation from Kabul at the Minsk airport. And no one will help, - the expert believes.