Scott Ikeda reports:

Many criminal hacking gangs originate from Russia and nearby points in Eastern Europe, and their ransomware and malware is sometimes found with settings that automatically disable it if regional languages are set on the target computer. An open source project maintainer essentially did the opposite in protest of the war in Ukraine, targeting computers with an IP address in Russia or Belarus with an update. The act of attempted “hacktivism” was supposed to leave a “message of peace” on these computers, but instead started overwriting files with a heart symbol.

The incident has caused an uproar in the free and open source software (FOSS) community, and adds to an ongoing debate about the validity and strategic usefulness of targeting random civilians for the actions of their government.

Read more at CPO Magazine.