On July 21, pro-Russian hackers took over a major Ukrainian radio station to broadcast fake news that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had been admitted to a hospital and put into intensive care.
Along with lying about Zelensky's health, the hackers also claimed that the duties of the president had been temporarily taken over by the Chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk.
At around 1 pm, the radio station's usual music program was interrupted by the reports about the president's health. While it is not known how many people heard the broadcast, 12-2 p.m. is a prime listening time for radio.
While it is significant that such hacking was used to spread lies, the company that owns the radio station is significant: Tavrmedia owns Ukraine's nine most popular radio stations, covering a wide variety of musical genres, thus appealing to a large number of people.
Tavrmedia has not yet released which of its stations was hacked and the identity of the hackers is also unknown. Since the start of the war back in February, Ukraine has been subjected to over 700 cyber attacks, most of which were successfully staunched by Ukraine's cybersecurity officials before they could cause any harm.
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