Website of Russian oil company Gazprom Neft goes down after apparent hack

The website of Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian gas giant Gazprom, went down on Wednesday after an apparent hack, in what looked like the latest attack on government-linked pages over Russia's actions in Ukraine. What looked like a hacked version of the web site briefly posted a statement purporting to be from Gazprom's Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.

The website of Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russian gas giant Gazprom, went down on Wednesday after an apparent hack, in what looked like the latest attack on government-linked pages over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

What looked like a hacked version of the web site briefly posted a statement purporting to be from Gazprom's Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin. Miller last month called on the gas giant's 500,000 employees to rally around Putin to preserve Russia as a great power in the face of foreign attempts to break her.

The statement attributed to him on what looked like the hacked version of the site cited him as making critical comments about Russia's decision to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. The web site stopped working soon afterwards.

A Gazprom spokesman dismissed the statement as nonsense. Gazprom Neft declined immediate comment.

The website of Russian state news agency TASS was hacked in February, with the regular site replaced with a message calling for Moscow to halt what it calls its 'special operation' in Ukraine.