For the European Union, Russia was involved in the hacking of the operator ViaSat.
As a reminder, the American satellite internet company faced a major cyberattack that paralyzed access to its network for many European users on the day of the Russian invasion.
“The European Union and its Member States, as well as its international partners, strongly condemn the malicious cyberattack carried out by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which targeted the KA-SAT satellite network, operated by ViaSat,” the statement said. today by the Council of the European Union.
EU denounces “irresponsible behavior”
The council denounces in particular “a new example of the continuous pattern of irresponsible behavior of Russia in cyberspace” and is concerned about the possible side effects of this type of cyberattack. According to him, they “could spread to other countries and have systemic effects endangering the security of European citizens”.
The EU specifies that it intends to take measures to deter future attacks and reaffirms its material and financial support to Ukraine.
In an independent statement, Estonia for its part directly cited the Russian intelligence services, in particular the GRU, as being at the origin of the attack.
UK supports EU
Shortly after the EU’s announcement, the British government in turn issued a press release accusing Russia of being behind the computer attack that paralyzed ViaSat’s network.
“British and American intelligence sources suggest that Russia was behind an operation targeting commercial communications company ViaSat in Ukraine,” the UK report reveals. UK cybersecurity agency NCSC also believes Russia was ‘certainly’ behind the attacks that led to the defacement of several official Ukrainian websites in January 2022, as well as the deployment of the Whispergate malware . The Whispergate malware is part of the “wiper” type software, intended to delete data from infected systems. Several have been identified in Ukraine since the beginning of the year.
The United States has not yet officially communicated on this cyberattack, but sources cited by the washington post had already indicated that US intelligence suspected the Kremlin of being behind this computer attack.
Collateral damages
The attack targeting ViaSat on February 24 was triggered “one hour before the start of the Russian invasion”, according to the European Union and the British government.
This was primarily aimed at users based in Ukraine, as the service is widely used by Ukrainian administrations, public services and companies. In a press release, ViaSat explained that the attackers had taken advantage of access to the operator’s maintenance network to distribute malware that had rendered tens of thousands of routers unusable, preventing users from connecting to the satellite network.
But the attack also had effects in several other member countries: a German wind turbine operator thus found itself unable to carry out its maintenance operations remotely, while French users subscribing to Satellite internet operators Nordnet and Bigblu also faced disruptions.
The ideal culprit Kremlin
This is not the first time that the European Union has pointed the finger at the actions of another state in cyberspace. In 2020, the Council of the European Union imposed sanctions targeting agents and organizations linked to Russian intelligence for their involvement in the cyberattack that targeted the German Parliament in 2015. Earlier in the year, six individuals and three organizations linked to North Korea, Russia and China have also been sanctioned by the European body. They have been accused of being behind several major computer attacks, including NotPetya, WannaCry and the CloudHopper campaign.