Main Cyber Highlights of the Week: May, 23-29
Foto — pixabay.com
Executive summary
Ukraine has gained unique experience in the use of cyberspace during the war. The powerful IT army has been created, which now has about 300,000 members. The state has united Ukrainian and international professionals [1].
Today, almost half a thousand employees of the State Service od Special Communication take part in the country’s cyber defense. Moreover, tens of thousands of specialists from other cybersecurity subjects of Ukraine, volunteers, and representatives of the international community make every effort every day to defeat the enemy on the cyber front.
During the three months of the war, 620 cyberattacks were detected, and more than 300 institutions received the help of cyber specialists [2].
Among the 280 crimes committed by russia in Ukraine against journalists and the media during the three months of the war, 32 cybercrimes and 50 threats were identified [3].
Since the beginning of March, there has been a steady trend of intimidation of journalists by threatening them with imprisonment in Siberia, torture and interrogation. Poetic threats began to be sent to journalists in April. In May, nuclear weapons threats were reported for the first time. Both central and regional media outlets received threats.
Ukrainian media sites are steadily suffering from constant cyber attacks by russians. Hackers change materials, place the russian flag, their Z and V symbols, and so on.
Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stoke told the World Economic Forum in Davos that cybercrime groups had become more sophisticated today. Hacking has become a global problem, and the actions of law enforcement officers at the national level make it difficult to detain criminals [4].
Singapore’s Minister of Communications and Information, Josephine Theo, said hacking was a threat to organizations around the world: «Cybercriminals are catching up with state cyber spies in terms of their level of training. This has become a matter of national security. The cybercrime world is profitable and self-financing, so it will prosper» [4].
Speaking at the international conference CYBERSEC FORUM «United in Cyber Force» on May 17-18 in Katowice, Deputy Head of the State Service of Special Communication Alexander Potiy stressed that the development of the concept of cyber deterrence should be based on the experience of nuclear deterrence [5].
Strengthening of cybersecurity of Ukraine
The IT army has launched a new tool – a bot to automate cyber attacks against russia [6].
Weakening of russia in cyberspace
After the «most powerful cyber attack» in the history of rutube, which affected more than 75% of databases and infrastructure of the main version and 90% of backups and clusters to restore databases, it was decided to expand the staff of cybersecurity specialists [7].
Cyber attacks on Ukraine
Fake distribution / information substitute:
- three fake chatbots «Something is flying» [8].
Dos / DDos:
- another cyber attack on Ukrtelecom [9].
Phishing / Malware:
- fraudulent scheme under the pretext of state aid payments [10];
- fake page of the site «To Help is Simple» to receive financial assistance from the UN [11].
Cyber attacks on russia
The IT-army of Ukraine in the period from 23 to 29 May attacked a record number of russian online services – more than 800 resources [12]:
- Banks
- Microfinance organizations
- Exchanges
- RuStore application store
- Insurance services
- Russian media
Statistics of attacks from disBalancer (tool Liberator DDoS-attacks) for three months of cyber warfare [13]:
Hackers Anonymous: