Government agencies and private sector organizations in Ukraine have suffered 796 cyberattacks since the start of the war on February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded the country.
According to Ukraine's cyber defense and security service, SSSCIP (abbreviation for State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection), since the start of the war, the country's networks have been under constant hacking attacks.
“Hostile hackers continue to attack Ukraine. The intensity of cyberattacks has not decreased since the beginning of Russia’s military invasion, although their quality is declining,” the SSSCIP service reported on Thursday.
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The country's government and local authorities, as well as its defense organizations , are the sectors most targeted in the first months of the war (281 attacks). However, the financial, telecommunications, infrastructure and energy sectors have also been largely affected
Most of the cyberattacks in Ukraine detected by the defense agency focused on intelligence gathering (242 incidents), while the rest aimed to compromise, take down, or infect targeted systems with malware.
Russian cyber attacks are linked to military attacks
The SSCIP data aligns with a report published by Microsoft in April, when the company revealed cyberattacks targeting Ukraine and launched by Russian hackers.
Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for security and customer trust, said the company’s researchers identified multiple Russian hacking groups targeting the country’s infrastructure and Ukrainian citizens in hundreds of attacks. In most cases, the Russian hackers aimed to infect critical systems with destructive malware and prevent citizens from accessing trusted information and useful services.
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“Starting shortly before the invasion, we have seen at least six separate national actors linked to Russia launch more than 237 operations against Ukraine – including destructive attacks that are ongoing and threaten the well-being of civilians,” Burt revealed in April.
The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) also observed threat groups affiliated with the Russian intelligence services GRU, SVR, and FSB (e.g. APT28, Sandworm, Gamaredon, EnergeticBear, Turla, DEV-0586, and UNC2452/2652) targeting Ukraine and allies as early as March 2022.
Burt also stressed that there is a direct connection between the Russian-backed cyberattacks and its military operations, as the launch of the cyberattacks and their overall timing match that of the military attacks.
Russia is intensifying efforts to hack Ukraine's allies
Earlier this month , Microsoft President and Vice President Brad Smith also said that hackers linked to Russian intelligence services were increasingly carrying out cyberattacks targeting Ukraine, as well as the governments of allied countries.
“MSTIC detected intrusion attempts on 128 targets in 42 countries outside of Ukraine,” Smith said.
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Most of these attacks are primarily focused on collecting sensitive information from government agencies in countries with critical roles in the NATO and Western response to Russia's war.
It is also worth noting that since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian hackers have carried out several successful cyberattacks (29%), and in a quarter of these intrusions, they were also able to steal data.
Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com
