Germany and Spain have issued arrest warrants for seven suspected members of a pro-Russian hacking group, accused of carrying out cyber attacks against critical infrastructure, arms makers, power companies, and public authorities.
The global operation involved law enforcement and judicial authorities from the US, France, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain. On Tuesday, 24 premises linked to the group were searched in multiple countries, including Berlin and Bavaria in Germany.
The group, known as NoName057(16), had enlisted over 4,000 volunteers who used messaging app Telegram to recruit members and carry out distributed denial of service attacks against critical institutions’ servers. The suspects are believed to have been involved in successful cyberattacks in Ukraine and on government, infrastructure, banking, health services, and telecom websites in European countries that have backed Russia.
European authorities have expressed concern over the scale of hybrid threats emanating from Russia, which has denied allegations of state involvement in these attacks. The aim of the NoName group’s attacks on German targets was to garner media attention and influence political and social decision-making in Germany, prosecutors said.
The suspects are all Russian citizens and are presumed to be residing in Russia. Five of their names and pictures have been published by Europol, while a further German arrest warrant remains sealed. The operation is seen as part of a growing global effort to combat cyber threats from Russia.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/seven-arrest-warrants-issued-global-swoop-suspected-russia-linked-hackers-2025-07-16