Madrid
Updated:05/23/2022 12:23h
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The ukrainian war is waged, too, outside the borders of the country governed by Zelenski. Since the beginning of the conflict, which is about to be three months old, Russia has seen the number of cyberattacks launched against its networks reach record highs. This was recognized by himself Kremlin just a few weeks after his soldiers began planting the soles of their boots in the invaded country. Now the president Vladimir Putin has shared that Russia is working to strengthen its computer security by reducing the use of Western hardware and software.
“Specific attempts are being made to deactivate the Internet resources of Russia’s critical information infrastructure,” the Russian president said last Friday, according to ‘Reuters’.
“Serious attacks have been launched against the official sites of government agencies. Attempts to illegally penetrate the corporate networks of major Russian companies are also much more frequent,” he continued.
Specifically, the Kremlin’s plan is to start dispensing with foreign-made equipment for embrace, instead, russian technology. Putin points out that the sanctions established by Western states, as well as the decision of companies in the sector to stop operating in the country as a protest against the Ukrainian invasion, has caused many Russian teams to be left without technical support. And obviously this makes them more vulnerable to attacks from ‘hacktivists‘ launched from abroad.
From spies to companies
Indeed, in recent weeks the number of attacks launched against the country governed by Putin through the Internet have reached levels well above the usual. Groups such as Anonymous, or the Ukrainian cyber-guerrilla IT Army, have managed to expose the data of a good handful of Russian companies and institutions.
Much of the data that the ‘hackers‘ pro-Ukrainians are getting, they are being shared on the DDoSecrets portal, a non-profit organization that works like a kind of Wikileaks. Founded in 2018, it currently stores several dozen datasets belonging to Russian entities. Anyone can get the information simply by entering the web, searching for the company, and proceeding, from there, to download the data.
On the other hand, a few weeks ago, the Ukrainian military intelligence service, dependent on the Ministry of Defense, left in the air personal data (including full names and addresses) allegedly belonging to 620 Russian agents of the FSB, the heir institution of the KGB. , which would be operating in Europe. Ukraine has also shared information on hundreds of Russian soldiers it says are linked to “war crimes” committed in the city of Bucha during the invasion.
China is also targeted
Beyond the actions carried out by groups of ‘hackers’ related to the country governed by Zelenski, a few days ago, the Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point published on its blog that the (supposedly) Chinese cybercriminal group Mustang Panda he had attempted to spy on at least two research institutes in Russia under the state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec.
In this case, the cybercriminals were posing as the Russian Ministry of Health through malicious emails that hid a virus intended for data theft. The campaign started in the summer of 2021. However, it has continued to develop throughout 2022.
Cybercriminals, who may be sponsored by the Chinese state, even began taking advantage of the Ukraine situation early in the invasion to get Russian officials to take the bait and download the email document in which the malicious code was hidden. This is demonstrated by the fact that in the emails sent by the group on March 23 to its Rostec targets, subjects such as ‘list of people under US sanctions for invading Ukraine’ were used.
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