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At 10:47 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1, Ukraine's Air Alert app began sending Kyiv residents false warnings of radiation, chemical threats and street fighting, CBS News reported.
The Ukrainian Air Force said within 15 minutes that the alerts were false. "The Air Alert app appears to have been subjected to hostile interference. There is no radiation threat!" it said. The app's developers disabled push notifications and suspended the service.
The app launched in 2022 with support from Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation. It had 6.6 million active users as of January, The Record reported.
About two hours later, at 2:45 a.m. Moscow time, the mobile app of Russia's Emergencies Ministry was hit. Russian state media said false alerts reached users in 33 regions. They warned that nuclear warheads had been launched and told residents to stock three weeks of food and shelter in basements.
The ministry said the attackers exploited a weakness in the app's administrative panel, and that it isolated the affected services. It also said the breach had not affected the public warning system, which relies on sirens, loudspeakers, text messages, television and radio.
Two groups claimed the attacks on Telegram. A previously unknown group called Hitcore Corp claimed the Air Alert breach. DC8044, which describes itself as an independent hacking community based in Kyiv, claimed the Russian app hours later and posted technical details.
Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said the hack did not affect Ukraine's security operations and that the app is not linked to military command systems. Push notifications and basic threat indicators returned gradually on Monday. The threat map stayed disabled for a time while extra security measures were added.
The incidents came as a temporary ceasefire around Oleshky, a southern city occupied by Russia since 2022, expired at 10:59 p.m. Sunday. The truce began Oct. 27. Ukrainian authorities have also warned of a possible large-scale Russian strike in the coming days, potentially aimed at Kyiv's energy infrastructure.
Alert systems have been targeted before. In 2023, hackers reportedly interrupted several Russian commercial radio stations with fake air raid warnings. That same year, the group AnonGhost reportedly sent unauthorized notifications, including a fake nuclear bomb warning, through Israel's Red Alert app.
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