Hackers hit Ukraine's air raid alert app with false alarms
The Air Force denied the radiation risk that fake messages announced in Air Alert. Russia later reported a cyberattack on its own emergency app.
False alerts of radiation, chemical attack and street fighting reached phones running Air Alert on Sunday night, the app Ukrainians use for air raid warnings. In a Telegram post, the Ukrainian Air Force ruled out any radiological threat and blamed "enemy influence" that "probably" hit the app.
One message, written in Russian, declared a nationwide nuclear alert and said the Oreshnik missile was "on its way." Oreshnik is the intermediate-range ballistic missile Russia has fired at Ukraine.
The app's developers confirmed an "unauthorized intrusion," switched off push notifications and paused the service. The false warnings were gone in about an hour, and by early Monday the app was slowly returning to normal.
No other civilian warning tool is as widely used in Ukraine. It was built by the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the company Ajax Systems, and recently added a map of drone movements.
It is not the first time a civilian alert has been used to spread fear: in 2023, regional Russian radio and TV stations aired false air raid and nuclear shelter warnings. In Mexico, where emergency alerts also arrive on phones, the case shows how such a system can be manipulated.
Hours later, Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations acknowledged a "massive cyberattack" on its own mobile app, which sent out false notices of nuclear warheads launched at Russia. Russian officials framed it as an apparent response from Ukraine.
Neither attack has been officially attributed. The Kremlin spokesman said Russian agencies face cyberattacks all the time, and named no one.
