The fear that Russia’s attack on Ukraine is the matrix of a global cyber war has already been strong in recent weeks. The Russian bombardments of the past few hours on Europe’s breadbasket unfortunately lend credence to this gloomy perspective.
Since that night, Ukraine has been hit by Russian bombardments targeting military installations all over the country as far as its capital, Kiev. These physical attacks, which look more and more like a will to occupy, worry the Ukrainians but also the international community, which is moved. To these assaults, we must add the computer attacks suffered by Ukraine for several weeks – assaults which have increased in intensity in recent days and which raise the threat of a cyberwar on a planetary scale.
An escalation of attacks that is spreading to most Ukrainian infrastructure
For several weeks, we have lost count of the number of times Ukrainian military and strategic websites have been victims of computer attacks. This Wednesday, for example, the sites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior and the Security Service of Ukraine were strongly impacted by disruptions.
These attacks took the form of so-called DDoS attacks, denial of service attacks whose primary goal is to bring down, or at least to slow down significantly through a large number of simultaneous connections, a website, a network and/or a service. If, on the front, the Russian military forces are increasingly visible, the cyber forces of the Kremlin could cause grim damage, although the country of the Tsars does not yet officially recognize these attacks.
In addition to its state apparatus and its military infrastructure, cyberattacks can strike energy installations (Russia has already cut electricity twice in Kiev in the middle of winter), financial and telecommunications networks of Ukraine, thus paralyzing the country whole. This possibility can no longer be ruled out, with banks having been affected, and cybersecurity specialists evoking the use of malware disrupting Ukrainian digital services, in particular. ESET Research has discovered malware used in Ukraine that has been installed on hundreds of machines, following multiple DDoS attacks in recent days. This malware “cleans” a computer’s data and disables it. Attacks of this type were already observed last month in the country.
Cyberwar, a sneaky but equally impactful conflict, which can spread to the rest of the world
We know that the world map of cyberattacks has been particularly lively for several months. Some IT security specialists fear that the situation will spread to the rest of the world. ” We fear that as the situation worsens, serious events will affect not only Ukraine “, wrote a few days ago the executive vice-president of Mandiant Intelligence, Sandra Joyce.
In the cyber world, we remember the attacks that caused the freezing of maritime transport and the production of vaccines, and “ the United States and Europe have witnessed successive waves of attempts to break into our sensitive critical infrastructure – attempts which we believe were designed to prepare for a scenario such as the crisis unfolding today’ today in Ukraine adds Mandiant Intelligence.
Let’s be aware of one thing: it is not a question of exaggerating or sensationalizing. ” We are Russia’s laboratory for cyberattacks “, declared, a few days ago, the head of information security of the Ukrainian National Center for Cybersecurity Coordination, Natalia Tkachuk. The threat is real and serious, and it does not only concern Ukraine. Many fear that Russia will be comforted in the idea of using its capabilities to attack the entire West.
The concern also comes from vulnerabilities in supply chains, software or chips, for example, which may be of Ukrainian origin, as the White House recently recalled. 90% of the neon produced for the US semiconductor industry comes from Ukraine. In response, the West, led by the USA, could engage in an economic war with Russia, which will not fail to respond by mobilizing all its cybernetic capacity.
Sources: Clubic, Mandiant Intelligence, Harvard Business Review
ESET Research
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