19 March 2022 | New Scientist | 9AS RUSSIAN forces built up
near the Ukraine border at
the start of this year, tensions
grew over whether an invasion
would occur. At the same time,
there were numerous digital
incursions over the border,
as cyberattacks affected key
Ukrainian infrastructure.
In the middle of January, the
so-called WhisperGate attack
took down around 70 Ukrainian
government websites, and on
15 February a cyberattack briefly
disrupted two Ukrainian state-
owned banks. The UK’s National
Cyber Security Centre said days
later that it already had evidence
that meant it was “almost certain”
the Main Intelligence Directorate,
the Russian military’s foreign
intelligence agency, was involved.
Malware attacks targeting
Ukrainian institutions and
infrastructure were also launched
on 23 February, the day before the
Russian invasion. These carried
on through the first two days of
hostilities, according to digital
security firm ESET. While these
attacks were disruptive, they
came nowhere near the worst-
case scenario expected by some:
that an all-out cyberwar would
coincide with a military invasion.
“After two weeks of atrocities
in the shape of physical war, the
cyber threat is yet to create the
impact to businesses and people
around the world once predicted,”
says Jake Moore at ESET.
Ukraine has experienced
regular cyberattacks since 2014,
with targets including electronic
voting machines and the country’s
power grid. Tim Stevens at King’s
College London says this may have
honed Ukraine’s defensive skills,
but it may also not be to Russia’s
advantage to launch devastating
attacks on a country in which it
has thousands of troops. “We have
enough eyes on Russian actors
to have a pretty fair idea of what
is, and what is not, happening.
Broadly speaking, we expected
cyberwarfare to play a bigger part
in this war,” he says. “But let’s not
forget, it’s been playing a very big
part for the past seven, eight years
in Ukraine, which you could view
as the first phase of a war. It’s just
that when the main, conventional
phase of military operations
started, it seems to have been
pushed to one side.”
Russia may be wary of bringing
down internet connections,
phone networks and power grids
that its own military will also
be relying on, says Stevens.
Ukraine has also had outside
help to stop cyberattacks, and this
may have shored-up defences and
limited the effectiveness of any
attempts. Two days before the
invasion, the Lithuanian defence
ministry announced that it was
leading a team of international
cyber specialists to help bolster
Ukraine’s defences, and the US
and UK have also sent experts to
Ukraine to assist. A host of security
companies, as well as tech giantsARIS^ MES
SINIS/
AF
P^ VIA^ GET
TYIM
AGESPeople leaving the
city of Irpin, Ukraine,
on 10 March
Security alert on a mobile
website for the Ukrainian
bank OschadbankCyberwarfare
Matthew Sparkes
Why hasn’t Russia waged an
all-out cyberwar against Ukraine?
BE
ATAZAWRZE
L/NURPHOTO^ VIA^ GET
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IMAGES70
Ukrainian government websites
hit by WhisperGate attack2
Ukrainian state-owned banks
disrupted by cyberattacks500+
Hackers in a volunteer group
targeting Russian institutionsMicrosoft and Google, also
gave free tools and licences
to Ukrainian organisations,
which are being used to spot
and stop attacks.
“Maybe Ukrainian cyber
defences are a lot better than
we’d expected,” says Stevens.
“Your allies can help you to
improve your cyber defences,
and maybe they’re just quite good
at repelling some of those attacks.
When push comes to shove, it may
be that the Russians have tried
stuff, but we’ve either not seen
them or they’ve been repulsed.”
The technical security and
intelligence service of Ukraine
claimed in a tweet that attempted
distributed denial-of-service
(DDoS) attacks designed to bring
down government websites had
been continuous throughout
the war, but had been largely
unsuccessful. “The only thing
the occupants managed to do was
to substitute the front pages at
the sites of some local authorities,”
it said. “We will endure! On the
battlefields and in the cyberspace!”
Ukrainian citizens are also
engaged in cyberwarfare with
Russia. One Ukrainian computer
programmer, now working
outside the country, told New
Scientist that when war broke
out, he quickly formed a
hacktivist group to attack Russia.
The hacker, who asked not to
be named, now runs a volunteer
group of more than 500 members
who target Russian institutions
in DDoS attacks. “There are other
groups, of course; mine is small
but active and effective,” he says.
“People do it for free, from
morning till late evening.”
The international activist
hacker group Anonymous
also claims to be seeing success
in attacking Russia, including
interrupting broadcast television
to display anti-war messages. ❚