Powerful_Greek_Army

Powerful Greek Army

Powerful Greek Army

Hacker Group


Powerful Greek Army or by the abbreviation "PGA" is a hacker group founded in 2016. The team has carried out numerous cyberattacks both in Greece and worldwide.

Notable attacks

In November 2016, a member of PGA named Kapustkiy breached some of the high commission websites in India, accessing login information of hundreds of users.[1]

In September 2016, the group started the campaign #OpClosedMedia, targeting news media organizations around the world, mainly with denial-of-service attacks.[2][3]

In December 2016, the group took down the website of the Prime Minister of Greece.[4][5]

After two years of inactivity on Twitter, PGA did an attack in April 2020, getting access to the School Network of Greece, which is the largest public network that connects all schools, teachers and a number of administrative services and supervised bodies of the Ministry, leaking some of the data they had under their control. The data included usernames, passwords, country of residence, street addresses, phone numbers, and other sensitive data that were stored into the system.[6][7][8] On why they did it, the group's main message was that "they wanted to warn the Greek government". The breach was also used by the opposition (and the second most popular political party in Greece) Syriza as a form of confrontation.[9]

Again, in April 2020, PGA hacked the Twitter account of Odysseas Konstantinopoulos, a famous Greek politician, former spokesman of PASOK, and vice president of the Greek Parliament tweeting things like: THIS IS THE LAST WARNING GREEK GOVERNMENT.[10][11]

In May 2020, they defaced the Institute of Sociological and Political Legal Research of North Macedonia, and also claimed to have hacked North Macedonia's Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Finance, exposing and posting some of the employees' personal information to the public. According to an official statement by the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia, most of the data that the hackers published was old. They also added they had no evidence at the moment that the e-mail systems were hacked, while the Minister of Economy Kreshnik Bekteshi explained that "no damage has been done" and informed that the ministry's IT department told him that no serious and confidential data was stolen. Some days after the attack, the group's Twitter account was taken down.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

In August 2020, PGA took offline some of the biggest banks of Turkey, including, Halkbank, Ziraat Bank, İşbank, DenizBank, Yapı Kredi, and Akbank. They also downed the websites of Turkish Airlines and President of Turkey.[19]

In January 2022, the group hacked into the Twitter account of NASA Director Parimal Kopardekar. The exact reason is unknown, but they claimed that they were looking for someone who works at NASA.[20][21][22]

In February 2022, the group started the operation OpEndMacedonia, which attacked some of the most important computer systems of North Macedonia such as the websites of the Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the country's central bank, Makedonski Telekom and news media. The group also hacked the Ministry of Education and Science (North Macedonia), posting their hacked database, and claiming that they "have access even in their camera systems, we watch you 24/7, we have eyes everywhere Skopje". The Ministry confirmed that there was a hacking attack, but said that the camera surveillance system was not theirs. Some weeks after, PGA managed to hit the banking system of North Macedonia, temporarily taking offline all the banks of North Macedonia. National Bank of North Macedonia confirmed the attacks. As an aftermath, North Macedonia signed a Memorandum of understanding agreement with NATO to strengthen their response to cyber attacks.[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]


References

  1. Popa, Bogdan (26 November 2016). "Powerful Greek Army Hacker Breaches High Commission Websites in India". Softpedia. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020.
  2. Cimpanu, Catalin. "Hacktivist Group Promises to Take Down Worldwide Media with DDoS Attacks". Softpedia. Archived from the original on 5 September 2019. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  3. "Powerful Greek Army: DDoS στο site του Πρωθυπουργού". SecNews. 4 December 2016. Archived from the original on 28 April 2020.
  4. "Το Πανελλήνιο Σχολικό Δίκτυο SCH.GR δέχτηκε hacking επίθεση". Greek teachers. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  5. "Greek hackers claim they broke into Finance and Economy ministries". NetPress. Archived from the original on 4 March 2021. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  6. Stojkovski, Bojan. "Hackers Expose Gaping Holes in North Macedonia's IT Systems". Balkan Insight. Archived from the original on 3 December 2020. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  7. "Powerful Greek Army takes down Turkey Government". Onyx Mods LLC. 18 January 2022. Archived from the original on 24 August 2020. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
  8. "NASA Director Twitter account hacked by Powerful Greek in affiliation with Army". Security Affairs. Archived from the original on 4 January 2022. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  9. "'Powerful Greek Army' group hacks twitter account of NASA Director". Greek City Times. Archived from the original on 3 January 2022. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  10. "Greek hackers hacked NASA chief social account". Blackweb-security.org. 4 January 2022. Retrieved 15 January 2022.

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