As Russian troops were massed on the border with Ukraine, preparing for the invasion of the country, a cyberattack paralyzed the services of the American company Viasat, which specializes in satellite telecommunications. Launched an hour before the invasion, this attack deprived many Ukrainian companies and public services, but also the country’s army, of the Internet, then it spread to many European users. Above all, it showed that cyberspace was now a battleground like any other.
Already before the start of the conflict, cyberspace specialists were preparing for a real Armageddon. During Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the entire sector feared the launch of massive, more complex, more destructive attacks, targeting both computer systems and infrastructure, which could deprive Kiev of energy, but also of means of communication, transport and production. And these attacks would not spare Ukraine’s allies.
The war that started a year ago will be remembered as the first hybrid conflict. Hybrid, because it takes place as much on the ground as in the digital space, but also because it affects and requires the intervention of both the military and intelligence worlds as well as companies. “Cyberspace is a new terrain of conflict. It is now contested and it will be constantly by authoritarian actors who test our limits. The world is not at peace, we no longer rule out attacks against our sovereignties and our borders, including in our digital space”said Christian-Marc Lifländer, head of the cyber defense section of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), during the inauguration conference of the security foundations, in October 2022 in Monaco.
Despite this anticipation and these fears of digital chaos, the cyberattacks carried out by Russian pharmacies against Ukraine and its allies, although daily and affecting businesses and individuals as much as State services, have not had the dreaded devastating effects. Have we misjudged Russian capabilities? Or overestimated the power of technology and underestimated that of humans?
Help Ukraine fight back
There are several reasons for Ukraine’s resilience. “The Ukrainians are certainly the best in Europe to fight Russian cyberattacks, because they have been doing it for a good decade”, underlines Mikko Hyppönen, research director of the Finnish company WithSecure. Evidenced by their efforts “at the risk of their lives, every night, to go and repair the communication networks and maintain the connections each time an attack undermines them, in order to allow Volodymyr Zelensky to hold his daily conference and the images to continue to circulate », he continues. Ukraine has built its resilience over the years, such as after the NotPetya virus attack in 2017.
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