Russian Hackers Targeted Czech Film Commission Website After It Published Article Promoting Czech Republic As A “Safe Place To Shoot” — KVIFF

deadline.com:

The Czech Film Commission, the body that promotes the Czech Republic to the international world, had its website hacked last week by Russian hackers.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion hosted by the Odesa Film Festival at Karlovy Vary’s Industry Days section, Czech Film Commission head Pavlina Zipkova told delegates that its website was recently targeted by Russian hackers after it posted an article on its website highlighting the Czech Republic as being a safe place to shoot.Zipkova said that the Czech Republic is “ready to help [Ukrainian filmmakers] but a virus from Russia” targeted the site after publication of this article.

Hackers infiltrated the website leaving one small sentence saying,“f**k, u ve been hacked!” on a white page. An independent IT company was able to trace it back to a Russian hacking program designed to take down pages that would feature words or sentences that could be linked to pro-Ukraine sentiments.In the article on the site, it highlighted the Czech Republic’s situation in light of the war in Ukraine, emphasizing that the Czech Republic was a member of the European Union and NATO and is distanced from the Russian federation.

It highlighted that the Central European country remained a safe place for international productions to come and shoot projects.The Czech Republic has a history of supporting and working with Ukrainian filmmakers and many of co-productions that were in motion before the war started, have now stopped.