The pattern is simple. An anonymous source. Cheap reach. Fake accounts to make it look big. And whoever speaks first sets the story.
This summer, a Ukrainian IT company called Fractal was attacked. Not by missiles, but by anonymous online channels. In two months, almost 110 stories about its co-founder, Artem Borodatiuk, appeared online. They reached close to three million views, the company says. The stories accused him of many things, from his role on a presidential business council to working in Russia.
The attack also moved offline. Employees got letters from a so-called former colleague. TV crews came to the office. Nobody knows who paid for it.
Borodatiuk said something every business owner should hear: while anonymous media stay unregulated, this is the price of doing business. I agree that companies must be ready. But I do not think they have to pay with their reputation, their clients and their teams.
Ukraine is the test lab
In Ukraine, attacks like this are now a normal business risk, just like cyber attacks or power cuts. Most Ukrainians read the news on Telegram, and anonymous channels there have huge audiences. People trust them more than they should. Most also believe they can easily spot fake news. That is exactly why fake news works.
It is also cheap. Ukrainian journalists recently tested the market: three paid posts on a big anonymous channel cost about 3,000 US dollars. Fake accounts are cheap too. In April, Ukrainian police closed a bot farm in the city of Zhytomyr that sold up to 3,000 fake accounts a month. These accounts make it look like everyone is talking about you.
Speed matters most. This month, hackers said they had broken into the systems of ATB, one of Ukraine’s biggest supermarket chains. They asked for 400,000 US dollars. And they told their story first, on their own channel. The company had to answer questions the attackers had already set.
So the pattern is simple. An anonymous source. Cheap reach. Fake accounts to make it look big. And whoever speaks first sets the story.
Not Telegram, but the same game
In Poland, Romania, or Czechia, Telegram is not the main news source. In the Baltics it matters mostly for Russian speakers. So you may think this is a Ukrainian problem. It is not. The platform is different, but the game is the same.
Romania saw this in 2024, when its Constitutional Court cancelled the first round of the presidential election, partly because of a coordinated TikTok campaign. Russia’s Doppelganger operation spent years copying the websites of European newspapers to spread fake stories. In your market, Telegram’s role is played by TikTok, Facebook groups, X, fake review sites and cloned news pages.
So far, most of these attacks have targeted politics. But the tools work just as well against a bank, a factory or a chain of restaurants. Businesses that trade with Ukraine, support it, or simply have angry competitors, are the obvious next targets.
What we learnt in Ukraine
Clients rarely call me in the first hour of an attack. They call on the second day. By then, the owner has already replied to the attackers in the comments. A manager has posted something emotional. A lawyer has written a threatening letter. Each step gives the attackers a new story, and a problem that could end in one day goes on for weeks. Here is what works instead, on any platform.
Firstly, do not argue with anonymous accounts. Every reply gives them more attention. Your real audience is not there.
Next, ask who gains, but do not wait for a name. Most attacks come before a tender, a sale, or a fight between partners. Often you never learn who paid. When you do, it is usually a former partner, a competitor or someone in a business conflict. Then you can push back.
In the Fractal case, the attackers wrote to employees. A team that doubts its owners can break a company from the inside. Your people should hear the truth from you, not from friends or social media.
It is also important to use facts and your own channels. A calm, clear statement works better than a loud denial. Show documents, numbers and names. That is what anonymous attackers do not have.
You should then check your statement before you publish it. In a crisis, one bad word can start a new wave. Read your text the way your clients, your staff, journalists, and your attackers will read it.
Finally, save everything and go to the police quietly. Screenshots, links, dates. Finding the people behind an attack is hard, even for the police. But when attackers know the police are looking, they often slow down. Just do it quietly, so your complaint does not become the next story.
Get ready before it starts
Getting ready costs very little. Three things are enough to start. Decide who speaks for the company. Prepare answers to the attacks you can already expect, because every business knows its weak spots. And watch what people say about you online. If you learn about an attack when it already has a million views, you are too late.
Every company has a fire plan, even though most never have a fire. Attacks on reputation need the same thinking. They are not the price of doing business. They are a normal business risk.
Ukrainian companies learnt this the hard way, in the middle of a war. The rest of the region has a big advantage: it can learn it before the attack comes.
Photo: Dreamstime.
Information attacks are the new operational risk for companies in emerging Europe was originally published on Emerging Europe.
