Russia Will Keep Up Cyber Attacks For Geo-Political Influence
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The Russian Federation is sure to use cyber attacks as one of the tools of the geopolitical impact. Oleg Frolov, the deputy head of the SBU, Ukraine's security service said this during the first conference of leaders of counter-terrorism agencies of UN member states in New York.
'A number of powerful and complicated attacks, cynical by design and catastrophic by potential consequences, on the networks of energy, banking and transport sectors of Ukraine's economy and the communication networks, have once again shown the intentions of the aggressor to use cyber-attacks as one of the tools of geopolitical influence', he said.
Over the past several months, Russian hackers have been trying to infect the computers and networks of Ukrainian companies with malware, so as to create the backdoors for a large-scale attack. Serhiy Demedyuk, the head of the Cyber Police of Ukraine said this as quoted by Reuters.
According to him, the malefactors attack companies in various sectors of the economy, but most often, their targets would be banks and energy sector enterprises.
Demedyuk added that judging by the structure of the malware, the hackers plan to conduct the major attack on a particular day. 'According to our research, the hackers spread the malware, which is divided into various components, sent from different sources, to avoid being detected by the anti-virus software. When assembled on one device, these components combine into the malware, which deals the actual damage.
According to Frolov, propaganda became one of the key components of the hybrid aggression against Ukraine; it created the playground for unfurling an entire arsenal of other conventional and non-conventional methods of waging war, such as using illegal armed units, initialing internal disorders, resorting to cyber-attacks and economic pressure.
Besides, the Internet is used to spread radical ideas, recruiting supporters and funding the illegal activity, related to terrorism.
The Ukrainian side also mentioned the necessity to join efforts in the struggle against terrorism and extremism.
Currently, the Ukrainian police cooperate with the foreign agencies in order to find these hackers. Demedyuk assured that the Ukrainian side is now much better prepared to deter potential attacks, like the one that happened exactly one year ago, on June 27, 2017, when ransomware called Petya when hit thousands of computers in Ukraine and abroad, encrypting the data stored on these devices and demanding money in exchange for the 'decryption'.
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