MOSCOW — Russia's Emergencies Ministry said early on Monday that its mobile application had been hit by a massive cyberattack that allowed false information to be spread to the public, state news agency TASS reported, in a Reuters report. The ministry said it was working to eliminate the vulnerability in the app and restore its normal functioning, TASS said, without providing further details.

Source: Reuters via TASS, Nov 2

“Attention! The mobile application of the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia has been subjected to a massive cyberattack, enabling attackers to send false information to the public,” the ministry said in a statement on Telegram, reported by Arab News. The ministry did not, in the reports published so far, say who it believed was behind the attack.

Source: Arab News, Nov 2

The Russian app is used to notify the public of air raid warnings, incoming drone attacks and other emergency threats, Arab News reported — which is why false messages sent through it carry a particular risk: people make shelter decisions based on what the app tells them.

The Russian announcement came only hours after the earlier development Awaaz Punjab reported on Sunday evening: Ukraine's public air raid alert app was apparently hacked and sent false warnings of a radiation threat, a chemical attack and street fighting in Kyiv, beginning at about 22:47 local time, before officials said there was no radiation threat and urged people to stay calm. It was not immediately clear whether the incidents in Ukraine and Russia were connected, Arab News said.

Source: ANI, Nov 2

Read the earlier Ukraine alert-app story here: Ukraine says air raid alert app was hacked as false nuclear warnings flashed across phones

Taken together, the two incidents show how the war's information battle has moved onto the emergency-warning systems civilians on both sides rely on most. Neither ministry has published a technical explanation yet, and no group has been officially blamed by Moscow for the attack on its app.