War in Ukraine: The Three Russian Cyber ​​Attacks – Western Powers Fear Most | Ukraine and Russia

UK tech and internet officials agree with White House calls to “increase cyber security precautions”, although no evidence has been presented that Russia Planning a cyber attack.

Moscow has declared on other occasions that such accusations are “anti-Russian”.

However, the Russia It is a cyber superpower with hackers and a great ability to launch disruptive and possibly destructive attacks.

From the Internet’s point of view, the Ukraine It has come under relatively little attack in the current conflict between the two countries, but experts are now citing concerns that the targets are allies Ukraine.

“Biden’s warnings seem reasonable, especially since Western countries have imposed more sanctions against her.” RussiaJane Ellis from Rapid7, a cybersecurity company, says:

Here are what attack experts fear most:

The Ukraine It is often described as a testing ground for Russian hackers, with attacks apparently carried out with the aim of experimenting with techniques and tools.

In 2015, a power grid was established Ukraine It was subjected to a cyber attack called “BlackEnergy”, which caused a The short-lived power outage affected 80,000 people in the west of the country.

About a year later, another cyber attack was launched, which became known as the “Industroyer”cut off electricity in about a fifth of Kyiv, Ukrainian capital for about an hour.

The United States and the European Union blamed the incident on Russian military hackers.

“It could totally be Russia “Try to carry out an attack like this against Western countries to show your strength and send a message,” says Ukrainian cybersecurity officer Marina Krutovel, who helped investigate the power outage.

“However, no cyberattack on the power grid has resulted in a prolonged interruption of the power supply. Efficiently running cyberattacks on complex engineering systems is extremely difficult. Achieving a long-term malicious effect is often impossible due to protection.”

Specialists such as Krotofil also assume that this type of struggle can be turned against RussiaWestern countries are also able to access Russian networks.

NotPetya The cyber attack that caused the largest financial damage in history. US, UK and EU authorities have linked the copyrights to a group of Russian military hackers.

The program with the power of destruction has been put into an update of the widely used computer program for accounting in UkraineBut it spread around the world, destroying the computer systems of thousands of companies and causing damage estimated at 10 billion dollars.

North Korean hackers were also accused of causing major disruption with a similar attack a month ago.

WannaCry “worm” (more destructive type of virus) was used Truncate or obliterate data on nearly 300,000 computers in 150 countries. The UK’s National Health Service has had to cancel a large number of medical appointments.

“This type of attack may have the greatest opportunity to cause mass chaos, economic instability and even loss of life,” Jane Ellis says.

“It might be hard to imagine, but critical infrastructure [de sistemas] It is often based on connected technologies, just like our lives in the modern world. We’ve seen the potential through the impact of WannaCry on UK hospitals.”

Alan Woodward, a professor and computer scientist at the University of Surrey, UK, points out that these attacks also bring risks to Russia.

“These types of uncontrollable hacks are very similar to biological warfare in that it is very difficult to target critical infrastructure in a specific, local way. WannaCry and NotPetya have also caused casualties in Russia. ”

Attack on the fuel supply

In May 2021, many US states adopted emergency plans after Hackers were able to block important pipeline operations.

The pipeline carries 45% of the US East Coast’s diesel, gasoline and jet fuel supplies. The attack led to a rush to gas stations.

This attack was not carried out by hackers linked to the Russian government, but by the ransomware group (where criminals demand payment to open a system) DarkSide, which experts have indicated is based on Russia.

The affected company admitted to paying criminals $4.4 million (more than R$21 million) in Bitcoin with difficult traceability to restart systems.

A few weeks later, meat supplies were affected when another ransom team called Brazilian REvil attacked JBS, the world’s largest beef processor.

One of experts’ biggest concerns about Russia’s cyber capabilities is that the Kremlin could direct groups to coordinate attacks on American targets to maximize disruption.

“The advantage of cybercriminals using ransomware attacks is the general chaos they can cause,” says Woodward of the University of Surrey. “In large numbers, they can cause serious economic damage.”

It also comes with a bonus that it is possible to refuse contact with these groups, since they do not have an official connection with the Russian state.

How can the United States respond?

In the unlikely event that a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member country suffers a cyberattack that causes loss of life or irreparable damage, it could trigger Article 5, the Alliance’s collective defense clause.

But experts say this would drag NATO into a war it doesn’t want to be part of, so the answers are likely to come directly from the United States or close allies.

Biden said the United States was “prepared to respond” if… Russia launched a major attack on the United States.

But any action will likely be evaluated very carefully.