A handful of hackers aligned with the Russian government have carried out hundreds of cyberattacks against Ukraine since Moscow invaded the neighboring country, US tech giant Microsoft said in a report on Wednesday.
Microsoft noted that in “hybrid” warfare tactics, Russia often combines these cyberattacks with military action on the battlefield.
“Starting just before the invasion, we have seen at least six Russian-aligned nation-state actors launch more than 237 operations against Ukraine,” said Microsoft, which is working with Ukrainian cybersecurity experts and private companies to counter such attacks.
The company maintained that cyber warfare included “destructive attacks that are ongoing and threaten the well-being of civilians.”
The report alleges that in the first week of the invasion, Russian hackers attacked a major Ukrainian broadcaster “on the same day that the Russian military announced its intention to destroy Ukrainian ‘disinformation’ targets and directed a missile attack at a television tower.” in Kyiv”.
The US corporation stressed that the goal of such coordinated attacks was “to disrupt or degrade Ukraine’s military and government functions and undermine public confidence in those same institutions.”
It also stated that it had detected almost 40 destructive cyberattacks, targeting hundreds of systems, a third of which directly targeted Ukrainian government organizations at all levels, from national to local, while another 40% targeted infrastructure. country review.
“These actors often modify their malware with every action to evade detection,” the report said, noting that the cyber attackers began preparing their campaign in March 2021, almost a year before Vladimir Putin ordered his troops invade Ukraine.
