Ukraine's air raid alert app was apparently hacked on Sunday, sending false warnings of radiation, chemical and nuclear threats to users across the country, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. The alerts began at approximately 22:47 local time and included messages in Ukrainian and Russian warning of radiation threats in Kyiv, a nuclear strike across Ukraine, and chemical and street-fighting threats. All-clear messages were sent at 23:53.
The Ukrainian Central Intelligence Agency said the app had experienced a failure and urged residents to use other sources to verify information about air strikes. The Ministry of Digital Transformation temporarily disabled the app and advised residents to enable emergency notifications on their smartphones.
Several regional leaders confirmed no actual threats existed. Governor Svitlana Onyshchuk of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast said "Everything is calm in the region for now" after the app had reported red-level air raid alerts. Vinnytsia regional head Natalya Zabolotna warned residents not to click links in the messages, which could be phishing attempts.
Hours after the Ukrainian alerts, Russia's ministry of emergency situations said its own app had been subjected to "a massive cyberattack" sending fake information to the public. Ukrainian news outlet UNN reported the Russian app sent fake nuclear threat alerts inside Russia.
Atesh, a Ukrainian partisan group operating in Russian-held territory, claimed responsibility on Telegram for hacking the Russian app and posted a screenshot of purported emergency alerts, though the BBC has not verified the image.