Ukraine’s Cyber Conflict With Russia

Uploaded on 2023-10-18 in NEWS-Cybersecurity News, INTELLIGENCE-Hot Spots-Russia, FREE TO VIEW

Since the invasion of Ukraine there has been a steady stream of disruptive cyber attacks against public services in both Ukraine and Russia with varying degrees of impact. Indeed, Russia has been developing and using offensive cyber capabilities against its perceived adversaries for at least 15 years.

The first major cyber attack took place in January 2022, and took down more than a dozen of Ukraine's government websites. Around 70 government websites, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Cabinet of Ministers and the National and Defence Council (NSDC), were attacked however the effects were not major.

Prior to the invasion cyber attacks struck Ukraine and one small country familiar with such tactics rose to Kyiv’s aid - Estonia. The tech-savvy nation of just 1.3 million people, Estonia has become a leader in cyber defence and NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre (CCDCOE) is based in the capital of Tallinn and hosts large cyber defence exercises.

On 24 February, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Western intelligence officials believed that this would be accompanied by a major cyber attack against Ukrainian infrastructure, although this threat did not really materialise.

Ukrainian Cyber Retaliation

Cyber attacks on Ukraine have continued during the invasion, but with limited success and independent hacker groups that support Ukraine, such as Anonymous, have launched cyber attacks on Russia in retaliation for the invasion. This invasion was the fourth time Russia has used military force against a neighbour since the end of the Cold War and the seventh time Russia used cyber operations as part of a larger campaign or independently as an instrument of coercion against a neighbouring state.

Hacktivist groups have been using unsophisticated forms of cyber attack, but have successfully temporarily disrupted banks, companies, pharmacies, hospitals, railway networks and civilian government services for Ukrainian and Russian citizens.

Red Cross Hacker Rules

Recently two major hacktivist groups involved in the Ukraine conflict, Killnet and the IT Army of Ukraine, have pledged to comply with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) rules for civilian hackers. These rules, dubbed a “Geneva Code of cyberwar,” are designed to reduce cyber attacks that impact civilians. Both groups have been involved in disruptive cyber attacks targeting public services, including hospitals and railways.

By vowing to comply with the ICRC rules, hacker groups will avoid cyber attacks that affect civilians. By adhering to the ICRC rules, these hacktivist groups aim to avoid attacks that affect civilians and non-military infrastructure.

The IT Army of Ukraine also said it would be following the ICRC's eight rules. The group, which has 160,000 members on its Telegram channel, also targets public services such as railway systems and banks. However, not all hacktivist groups are expected to follow these rules, and the situation in the region remains complex and volatile.

Estonia

Estonia has earned its role as a cyber-partner for Ukraine the hard way. In 2007, the highly networked nation faced mass cyber attacks after it decided to remove a monument to the Soviet Army, which occupied Estonia from 1940 to 1991. Some ATMs stopped functioning, government workers were unable to communicate by email, and media outlets were unable to publish their work.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Estonia has seen a decline in cyber attacks and many of the attacks are intended less to actually impede government activities than to demonstrate a political point. Although destructive attacks are most attention-grabbing, Russia’s main cyber activity in Ukraine has probably been focused on intelligence collection.

Russian hackers have sought to gather data to inform Moscow’s military planning, weapons targeting, occupation activities, influence operations, and future negotiations with Kyiv. However, the various Russian military failures in Ukraine seem to have prevented Moscow from properly leveraging cyber intelligence, at least for now.

CSIS: Oodaloop: BBC: DefenseOne: Marcus Willet: Carnegie Endowment:

Image: David_Underland

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