Russia could run out Alcohol Supply due to EGAIS unavailablity. A group of hackers operating in favor of Ukraine have launched DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks on Russia’s critical Beverage Infrastructure.
The attack was launched by a group known to be Ukraine’s IT Army and has caused a delayed distribution of alcoholic beverages in Russia. As a result of the war, Ukraine’s IT Army was created by Ukrainian government officials uniting volunteers around the world for the aim of launching cyberattacks against Russia’s critical infrastructure.
Although their activities are illegal, Ukraine’s IT Army was brought up since February 2022 to fight in the cyberspace. According to reports from Russian media, several alcoholic producers and distributors have complained about the inability to access the EGAIS portal.
How Important is EGAIS to Russia?
The EGAIS system was implemented by the Russian government. The Unified Automated Information System, which tracks production volumes and turnover of all alcohol, also stores information on the production and distribution of alcohol.
Due to the attack, alcoholic beverages and distribution to retail points have suffered greatly, raising the risk of actual shortages in the consumer market. As of Wednesday, many Beverage Factories were forced to reduce their production rates and have stopped shipments of products to warehouses due to EGAIS unavailability.
These factories are unable to distribute products and have too many in storage. Vendomosti, a Russian business newspaper, reported that producers and distributors of alcohol for the first May holidays could not ship products to their customers due to large scale failure in the operation of the Unified State Automated Alcohol Information System (EGAIS).
This information was reported to Vendomosti by four participants in this market, a representative of a large retailer and an employee of a specialized association.The attack was said to have started since May 2.
The attack against the portal is still on-going and the portals still remains unavailable. Vadim Drobiz, Director of the Center for Research on Federal Alcohol claim the attack on EGAIS will not affect the end consumer as retail chains have already formed sufficient stocks before May holidays.
