A look at the Belarusian Cyber Partisans, a hacking group that has released a huge data trove, including from the government and police, to undermine Lukashenko
BloombergRyan Gallagher
Context & Ripple Effects
This profile lands mid-arc: the Cyber Partisans' stated aim is regime change, not profit, and their government-and-police data dump is the opening move of a campaign that later escalated into sabotage — including a ransomware strike on the Belarusian rail system aimed at disrupting Russia's military logistics ([[a:975294]]).
What makes the asymmetry notable is that Belarus runs offensive cyber operations of its own: Mandiant attributed the Ghostwriter hack-and-leak campaign in EU states partly to Minsk with high confidence, and researchers later documented Belarus-linked hackers intercepting ISP connections to spy on foreign diplomats. The Partisans are fighting a state that is itself an active player in the same discipline.
First-order effects
Lukashenko's security services face immediate exposure: leaked police and government files are now public, usable by opposition figures, journalists, and foreign governments to map the regime's internal machinery.
The Partisans convert a protest movement into an armed-in-all-but-name cyber wing, giving Belarus's opposition a capability that operates inside the country without physical presence.
Second-order effects
Minsk's counterplay is visible in the coverage: state-linked operations like Ghostwriter and MoustachedBouncer's diplomat spying show the regime answering activist hacking with its own espionage and influence campaigns abroad.
Critical infrastructure inside Belarus becomes contested terrain — the rail ransomware attack shows the group shifting from leaking secrets to physically consequential disruption once the war gives them a strategic target.
Third-order effects
Hack-and-leak is becoming a two-way instrument of political conflict between states and non-state groups, eroding the assumption that only intelligence agencies run these operations at scale.
If activist groups keep pairing data exfiltration with infrastructure attacks timed to geopolitical events like the Ukraine invasion, governments will treat domestic hacker collectives as combatants rather than criminals — with attribution firms such as Mandiant acting as the referees.
The trend: Politically motivated hacker collectives are escalating from document leaks to kinetic-adjacent infrastructure sabotage, turning national cyber capabilities from a state monopoly into contested ground.
Cyber-partizans are Belarusian hackers who recently hacked Lukashenka's Ministry of Interior databases. incl. Akrestina CCTVs. They do an important job in keeping loyalists under pressure, creating feelings that they can't trust anyone in the system. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Great reporting on the Belarusian Cyber Partisans, one of the groups hoping to “combine computer sabotage with physical uprising on the streets, resulting in ... the overthrow of the Lukashenko government.” https://twitter.com/...
“If ever Lukashenko ends up facing prosecution in the International Criminal Court, for example, these records are going to be incredibly important,” said @tanyalokot #cyberpartisans https://twitter.com/...
According to the article, the Cyber Partisans “are preparing to shut down government computers with malicious software named X-App.” Wonder what they're referring to? https://www.bloomberg.com/...
They also obtained - mortality statistics indicating that thousands more people in Belarus died from Covid-19 than the govt has publicly acknowledged - video footage from police drones & detention centers - And they've hacked & sabotaged 240+ surveillance cameras in Belarus https…
Data obtained by the hackers could be of major significance in the long-term, according to experts, bolstering international efforts to sanction Lukashenko & his subordinates, as the trove provides evidence of officials ordering beatings of citizens during last year's protests: h…
The Cyber Partisans are pretty bold: they told me they hacked Belarus's interior ministry by having someone in Belarus physically enter a govt facility & break into a computer network there, leaving a backdoor that was further exploited by a team operating remotely. https://twitt…
Moreover, in a fascinating development, the hackers are collaborating with former Belarusian police officers, who defected from the country last year, citing election fraud & violence against protesters.
Now, the hackers told me in an interview, they are preparing to shut down Belarus government computers with malicious software they call “X-App” & are planning for a period that they say will combine computer sabotage with physical uprising on the streets.
The group has penetrated some of the most secret govt databases in the country, obtaining: - a huge trove of recordings from a govt wiretapping system that intercepts phone calls - personal info on top govt officials & spies - a list of informants who reported activists to police
Wrote about an extraordinary ongoing hacking campaign in Belarus by a group called the “Cyber Partisans”, which has breached dozens of police & government databases in recent months in a bid to expose wrongdoing & overthrow the Lukashenko regime https://www.bloomberg.com/...