Russian and Ukrainian hacktivists hacked into and stole a database containing information on hundreds of thousands of prisoners in retaliation for the death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
The hackers posted a photo of the 47-year-old Navalny on the prison contractor’s website, alongside a message reading, “Long live Alexey Navalny!”
The tech-savvy protesters took things even further by reducing the prices of items in the prison system’s online commissary to 1 ruble, equivalent to about 1 penny.
“We were watching the (access logs to the online store) and it just kept scrolling faster and faster with more and more customers making purchases,” the hacker reportedly said.
It took authorities a couple of hours to notice that prisoners were purchasing food at a fraction of the cost, paying mere pennies on the dollar. However, the prison’s IT staff needed a total of 3 days to resolve the issue, according to sources.
“We love our country and will return when it is free from the Putin regime. And we’ll go till the end on this path,” the hackers wrote on one of the prison shop websites.
The hacking group warned network administrators not to delete the pro-Navalny messages from the website. When the administrators failed to comply, the hackers responded by destroying a computer server.
One of the alleged anti-Kremlin hackers, who spoke to CNN, shared with the network that they are distributing the stolen contact information of about 800,000 prisoners and their relatives “in the hope that somebody can contact them and help understand what happened to Navalny.”
Navalny died under mysterious circumstances in an Arctic penal colony, where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence on charges of extremism, fraud, and contempt of court. The cause of death was quickly attributed to sudden death syndrome.
The US has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being behind the death of his most significant political rival.