In late May 2022, an organised campaign to dox (a practice of maliciously publishing personal information online) members of the Ukrainian military, secret services, volunteers and international trainers assisting Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion began to spread across social media. The operators of this campaign claim to be a group of patriotic Russian hackers engaging in a volunteer effort they have dubbed Project Nemesis. Project Nemesis includes a website publishing the photographs and personal details of hundreds of individuals fighting on behalf of Ukraine, including birth dates, addresses, telephone numbers, passport numbers, personal social media profiles and more. It also incorporates a Telegram channel which posts multiple times a day, highlighting particular individuals who have been doxxed on the site and encouraging their thousands of followers to mock or harass them. As of early June 2022, there are also indications of an effective media strategy to amplify Project Nemesis and further its goals. The individuals doxxed on the website include alleged members of the Ukrainian military, in particular members of the Azov Battalion and Pravyi Sektor, two groups which have been singled out for their connections to the far-right. Russian propaganda has relied heavily on distorting the real but nuanced problem of links between the Ukrainian military and far-right and neo-Nazi groups. Project Nemesis also claims to have hacked and published the details of 700 members of Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU. ISD has not verified this data. Russian state media has reported that a member of the Russian security services believes it is authentic. It is unclear exactly who is behind Project Nemesis and what, if any, connection it may have to the Russian state or security services. What is clear, however, is that this is a new and aggressively personal salvo in the information war which shadows the conflict on the ground.
via isd: Project Nemesis, Doxxing and the New Frontier of Informational Warfare