Hackers rename Putin’s superyacht ‘FCKPTN’ in maritime data breach
A group of Anonymous hackers have renamed the superyacht reportedly owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘FCKPTN’ and changed its destination to ‘hell’ by manipulating its maritime data.
The hack reportedly took place on 26 February and data on the Marine Traffic website is still showing superyacht Graceful with the hacked call sign of FCKPTN.
According to the Independent, the hackers said that keeping Russian technicians busy with problems like this delays potential cyber attacks on Ukraine.
Ryan Gallagher, an investigative journalist for Bloomberg, posted on his Twitter page that a small offshoot of the larger Anonymous vigilante hacking group manipulated the maritime automatic identification system, used to track ship locations.
According to Gallagher, the hackers changed the yacht’s destination to ‘hell’ and changed its call sign to FCKPTN and told him they wanted to “put a little smile on some faces for a short period in these dark times”.
The 82-metre superyacht Graceful is said to belong to Putin. In February, MIN reported Graceful was spotted sailing towards Russia from a German shipyard in an unexpected move that was thought to avoid the $97 million vessel being impounded by tough sanctions in the event of a Russian attack against Ukraine.
