INTERVIEW
cybersecurityeurope
Ukraine, Russia conflict, the idea of
an “IT Army” is another. The Ukrainian government called for hackers, and not just Ukrainian hackers, to join its IT Army to fight back against alleged Russian cyber activity. “With the IT Army, it’s probably the first time we see a government asking for people to join its forces. In terms of forming an offensive or defensive force.” The recruitment process is “not very open,” Karagiannopoulos, says, and because
the IT Army hackers do
not have to be Ukrainian this adds another layer of potential complexity. Karagiannopoulos sees the hackers being “designated targets, for example” and the “hackers would help with boosting cyber defences”. Historically, he explains, countries have not spoken publicly about their IT Army because cyberattacks have been an activity that nations do not want to admit to. “[It’s] because, obviously, it would mean you are sort of declaring war explicitly against another country.” Russia is alleged to have a number of the pseudo-independent hacker groups that operate on its behalf. Hacking what the Kremlin wants attacked. Karagiannopoulos wants to emphasise that because of the difficulty in attributing an attack to one group or nation language referring to any nation being the attacker needs to be qualified. However, some groups have been identified and are believed to be hackers for the Kremlin. One Russian group is called Sandworm and another Qiwi, named after Russia’s
credit card
payment system. For the Ukrainians, it has international civilian hacker groups coming to it aid, such as the infamous Anonymous and Network Battalion collectives. While Russia has remained silent about the cyber-attacks against it, Ukraine has reported denial of
service attacks
against different civilian and government targets and networks. “Corporate networks have been attacked by data exfiltration software and malware, in terms of stealing government, military
or corporate information in terms of corporations that might be engaging with the government, supporting it in the war,” Karagiannopoulos explains. Some of the goals of that exfiltration is to obtain information on military movements, for example. Attacks on Russia by hacker allies of Ukraine are believed to have exposed the identities and activities the country’s secret services. While at home, Russians are being text
messaged by hackers telling them what is actually happening in Ukraine and TV channels have been hacked to show graphic videos of Russian losses. “There’s a
big campaign in terms of sharing
information regarding what’s happening in Ukraine... to bypass Russian censorship.” On 24 February, Russia embarked on the most destructive war in Europe for almost 80 years. What was meant to be a “special military operation” has become a lengthy war that has been catastrophic for much
With the IT Army, it’s probably the first time that we see a government asking for people to join its forces
of Ukraine and the Russian military. Before this year, cyber offensives had been much discussed as a feature of hybrid warfare but now the utility of cyberspace for full scale war is being seen for the first time. Karagiannopoulos knows that the worst cyber warfare can do has yet to be seen. For example, no malware programs like Stuxnet which allegedly, destroyed Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges by making them spin out of control. “We haven’t seen anything major that we would class as a cyber-attack hitting critical infrastructures with a destructive effect,” Karagiannopoulos noted.
ACCREDITATION Words | Rob Coppinger Photography | Shutterstock
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IT-SA 2022 PREVIEW
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