Separatist website publishes personal data of several dozen Ukrainian journalists

The separatist website “Tribunal. Vozmezdie nastanet” (Tribunal. Requital will come) published the personal data of more than 20 Ukrainian journalists.

The site’s section “Ukrainian propagandist” contains the photos of media workers and scanned copies of their press cards. There are mostly data of journalists of Channel 5, 1+1 TV channel, NewsOne TV channel, and Do TeBe TV channel (Donetsk regional department of the National Television Company of Ukraine). There are also correspondents of ICTV TV channel, 112 Ukraine TV channel, Inter TV channel, Obozrevatel news website, BBC, and others.

October 18, Do TeBe TV channel informed that personal information of three channel’s employees was posted on the Tribunal website of separatists.

The editorial staff of the channel sees the link between the hacker attack on the email and Facebook page of the ATO Headquarters press center and putting personal data of journalists on the lists of “Donetsk People’s Republic.” The editorial office recalls that the email and Facebook page of the ATO Headquarters press center were hacked on October 5. The journalists are accredited with the press center to be able to work on the contact line. Do TeBe TV channel journalists had been accredited the other day.

At the same time, Olena Hitlianska, the spokesperson for the Security Service of Ukraine, said that the separatists of Tribunal site received information about journalists not from the Ukrainian Security Service, Detector Media reports.

According to her, the email of the Security Service of Ukraine was not hacked. “When we saw that information, we checked our email. We even blocked it for a day to carry out a comprehensive cyber inspection. We checked everything, but exposed no traces of hacker attack. There were attempts but they had failed. And believe me, if they hacked us, we have over 5,000 press cards, they would publish a lot more,” she said.

Hitlianska also supposes, but does not state, that separatists could easily get this information from other sources.

“These are just press cards, which journalists could submit in open access to some other place. If you pay attention, they posted information of well-known personalities, whose data can be easily found on the whole… I cannot say that was done by journalists themselves. Perhaps, journalists applied for accreditation somewhere else, where the information was taken from. I’m not ready to talk about the source where they got that information from. I can state with full responsibility that it was not our fault. Our email was not hacked,” the spokeswoman assured.

According to Hitlianska, the journalists, whose data were posted on the separatist website, did not address the Security Service. “If the journalists appeal to us with a request, then, of course, we will check,” she added.