Loading threat actor…
Killnet, also styled KillNet or KILLNET, is a Russia-based, pro-Russian hacktivist collective best known for coordinating distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaigns against Ukraine, NATO members, and other countries supporting Ukraine. It emerged from a commercial DDoS service advertised in January 2022 and adopted a hacktivist identity following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Its operations and messaging align with Russian geopolitical interests, although direct Russian government control has not been established. Killnet uses Telegram to recruit participants, distribute targets, coordinate attack waves, publicize claims, and solicit support. Its semi-formal hierarchy includes subgroup commanders and a volunteer structure called Cyber Special Forces RF or Legion. Named squads have included Jacky, Mirai, Impulse, Sakurajima, Zarya, and Phoenix. Its broader umbrella has included Anonymous Russia, Anonymous Sudan, UserSec, and Infinity Hackers BY. Much of its operational activity is conducted through collective members rather than central operators. Targets include government and law-enforcement bodies, hospitals and other healthcare organizations, banks, airports, transportation providers, technology companies, defense contractors, and media organizations. Killnet also targeted Israeli public-facing services during the Israel–Hamas conflict. Its principal techniques are network- and application-layer DDoS attacks using publicly available scripts, botnets, open proxies, spoofed traffic, reflection and amplification, and HTTP request floods. Documented campaigns have caused temporary website outages without necessarily disrupting underlying operational services. Public attack claims sometimes exceed independently verified effects. Some affiliates conduct broader intrusion activity, including social engineering for credential harvesting and document theft. Zarya has focused on compromising strategic organizations and maintaining access for information extraction. Founder KillMilk announced a commercial transition under the PMC KILLNET brand in 2023, while affiliated groups continued politically motivated campaigns. Killnet also uses publicity and political messaging to amplify perceived impact and mobilize supporters.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
15 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
11 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
6 additional families tracked in Mallory.
5 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Identified as a pro-Russian hacktivist collective whose activity aligns with Russian geopolitical interests and state-aligned narratives.
Conducted DDoS attacks against U.S. state government websites in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections.
An opportunistic anti-Western actor in the coalition, providing symbolic support, amplification, and target selection.
Killnet finally admits to working directly for the Kremlin
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.