Cyber ​​attacks as a powerful weapon in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine

The dawn of Thursday 24 Russia began the invasion of Ukraine, this action ordered by President Vladimir Putin stirred the international community and forced thousands of Ukrainians to mobilize in search of getting away from the constant bombing, but the Russian attack, in reality, I would have started earlier.

And quietly. A day before the invasion began, Ukraine had already suffered three cyberattacks against various banks and websites of the Government and Parliament, according to the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov.

“Several banks have been affected, and there are also problems with access to the websites of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament), the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Fedorov stressed.

What kind of cyber attacks have affected Ukraine?

The latest cyber attacks recorded in Ukraine have had as a common feature that they have been classified as “denial of service” (DDoS) attacks.

This was confirmed by Fedorov himself on Telegram: “At approximately 4:00 p.m. local time, another massive DDoS (denial of service) attack began in our state.”

This attack uses bots that automatically flood the online service until it is overwhelmed so that it crashes, crashes, and prevents access to legitimate users.

“Basically, attackers overload a service or website with more traffic than it can handle,” Richard Smith, director of the Institute of Cyber ​​Technology at Montfort University, in the United Kingdom, explains to BBC Mundo.

a previous attack

Ukraine had already suffered massive cyberattacks in January and on February 15, in which it saw Russia’s footprint, as did the United States.

The one in mid-February was, according to the department headed by Fedorov, the largest cyberattack in the country’s history, which was also a DDoS attack against state websites and the banking sector, the cost of which “runs into millions of dollars.”

The head of the cybersecurity department of the Security Council of Ukraine (SBU), Ilyá Vityuk, told EFE that the high cost of such an operation rules out the possibility of a lone hacker or a small group acting.

“These types of attacks are carried out by States through intelligence services and specially created infrastructure. We clearly see the footprint of foreign intelligence services”he indicated.

another kind of attack

Ukraine also discovered that it had been the target of another type of attack: through the installation of a malware called “wiper” that destroyed the data of different systems. This malware was created on December 28 of last year, which would show that the attack was prepared in advance.

“What it did was remove the boot record from the devices. That means they can’t start up afterwards; you have to start completely from scratch and reinstall everything. With this, it takes even more time to be able to return to full operational capacity”Smith tells the BBC.

United States intervenes

On February 24, the US government announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is coordinating preparation for a possible impact of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the country, amid concerns about possible cyber attacks by Moscow.

US authorities have warned of the possibility of Russian cyberattacks against companies or infrastructure in the country and the president, Joe Biden, reiterated that Washington is “prepared to respond” if Moscow launches any type of digital attack.

While Ukraine and the United States blame Russia for these attacks, the Kremlin denies any involvement.

“There is no way to prove it. Attribution is usually very difficult in these cases because the attacks are not necessarily launched from servers in their own territory”Smith says.

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