A false air alert on the air of Russian radio stations and TV channels on the morning of February 28 occurred due to the interception by hackers of a signal from the Yamal-402 satellite, owned by the Gazprom Space Systems holding (part of the Gazprom group). Vedomosti writes about this, citing two sources close to a large satellite television operator and a source among the partners of the hacked TV channels.
On February 28, in several Russian regions, including Moscow, Dolgoprudny, Voronezh, as well as in the Russian-occupied Crimea, air raid alerts sounded on radio stations and on some TV channels. The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia stated that the information is not true and appeared as a result of “hacking the servers”.
As a source from among the company's partners told Vedomosti, the holding's TV channel distribution support department sent a letter to its partners immediately after the incident, stating that the false alarm was due to a “signal spoofing” of the Yamal-402 satellite broadcasting on 55 degrees east longitude. “At the moment, the substitution has been eliminated, but there is a high risk of a recurrence of sabotage,” the letter said, which the newspaper read.
The fact that there was a failure in the broadcasting of the Yamal-402 satellite was told to Vedomosti by two sources close to one of the major satellite TV operators. One of them claims that hackers intercepted the signal from the satellite using a powerful antenna located on the territory of Ukraine. The second source of the newspaper says that it is possible to interrupt the satellite signal in this way from any point in the coverage area of the spacecraft. The interlocutor of the publication believes that such an interception can be repeated.
The shareholder of the satellite communications operator AlegroSky Sergey Pekhterev, in a conversation with the publication, emphasized that this is not about interception, but about signal substitution. He explained that a stronger signal could “crush the signal that the television center is transmitting” and warned that such actions are possible in the future.
TelecomDaily CEO Denis Kuskov, in a conversation with The Insider, that there is “nothing supernatural” in this way of signal substitution:
“They change the signal, for this they use the receiving equipment that each satellite has. Not the antennas are round, but the receiving equipment in the form of base stations located on the territory of the country, and from there the signal comes, which was replaced. To do this, you need special equipment that will allow you to replace the real signal with a false one.