International Hunt for NoName Hackers

Seven arrest warrants, 24 searches, coordination between nine countries, and publication of suspect data — a large-scale special operation in Europe against the pro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16), which attacked government, energy, and military structures of countries supporting Ukraine.

On July 16, 2025, the German prosecutor’s office and the Europol agency announced an international special operation, as a result of which six arrest warrants were issued in Germany (five of them public) and one in Spain. In total, searches were carried out in 24 locations — including in Berlin, Bavaria, and at the volunteers of the NoName Telegram group, through which more than 4,000 participants were recruited to attack critical infrastructure.

NoName057(16), which acts in the interests of Russia, coordinated DDoS attacks on state and private resources – from defense enterprises to telecoms and hospitals. Participants were sent a list of targets, special software and even paid in cryptocurrency. According to Italian intelligence, the group had a centralized command structure in the Russian Federation, used its own botnet of hundreds of infected servers, and recruited through hacker forums, gamers and pro-Russian channels.

• This is far from the first appearance of NoName in the headlines: since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, they have repeatedly attacked web resources in Poland, Lithuania, Finland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine itself. Their activity has increased in parallel with the escalation of the war and is consistent with the tactics of hybrid threats, which include both assassinations and bombings, as well as massive cyberattacks.

• Despite the fact that in this case the suspects are not directly linked to Russian state structures, all the activities of the group and the sources of its organization clearly indicate state coordination or tolerance on the part of the Russian Federation.

This special operation became one of the largest examples of coordination between Western countries in the fight against Russian cyber aggression. The names and photos of five Russian citizens who are considered to be involved in the attacks were published for the first time. Investigators emphasized that the goal of NoName is not only to disable infrastructure, but also to influence the media space, political decisions and public opinion, in particular in Germany. In the era of digital warfare, information weapons are no less powerful than real ones.