Hackers Attack: Russian-Ukrainian cyber stand-off

In the Cold-War style conflict between Ukraine and Russia, underlining cyber assaults show how warfare is being changed by the digital age.

On February 28, a group of unidentified men took control of Ukraine’s telecom provider Urktelecom, cutting cables and severing all landline, mobile and internet connections between the Crimean Peninsula and the rest of the country. Ukrainian security chief Valentyn Nalivaichenko told journalists that the mobile phones of Ukrainian MPs had also been tampered with.

Meanwhile, State Run media outlets broadcast propaganda ridden reports, denouncing international involvement in the Kiev Protests. The TV channel Russia 24 aired the message of a Russian claiming western forces had paid him to take a rifle and join the protestors. The news anchor stated “Mercenaries are now going to Crimea. Their aims are clear enough: to provoke a new wave of the crisis and rob people on the sly.” The AFP suggests that such reports are aimed at creating suspicion.

Pro-Ukraine content has been censored. 13 community groups set up on the Russian social network Vkontakte in support of the new interim government in Kiev were temporarily blocked from access by Russian IP addresses. The Federal Service for the Supervision of Communications has stated that it will continue to block pro-Ukrainian groups and any IP addresses with ‘extremist content’.

Through this information-control campaign, Russian supporters aim to silence Ukraine’s side of the story during the chaos.

Ukraine has been quick to retaliate. One Ukrainian hacktivist group, Cyber-Berkut, posted a list of 40 websites it has vandalized since the conflict began, including the homepage of Russia today, a state funded broadcaster. For a short time, the word ‘Russians’ was replaced with ‘Nazis’. The website of this hacktivist group clearly announces its intention to pursue the cyber-war. One post reads, "Today, the "KiberBerkut" countdown begins. Traitors of Ukraine who have transgressed the laws of our homeland, you have nine days to voluntarily surrender to the prosecuting authorities or the Kharkov Simferopol.”

Both countries are well known centers of international cybercrime, home to talented computer engineers and hackers. However, the conflict hasn’t yet escalated to the level of Russia’s previous cyber-wars, with Estonia in 2007 and Georgia in 2008, where DSoS (distributed denial of service) attacks blocked government websites, news sites and prominent businesses.

Security experts have speculated that Russia may be exercising restraint with its cyber-capabilities. Marty Martin a former senior operations officer with the US Central Intelligence Agency said more extreme cyber-attacks would only be advantageous if violence escalated. As he told Reuters, "A lot of times you don't want to shut things down. If you do that, then you don't get your flow of intelligence. You are probably better off monitoring it."

The Russian government may also be treading carefully, as they are unsure of the international community’s reaction. Military doctrine is being forced to evolve in the digital age, and cyber-conflict could soon be considered acts of war in their own right. Areport from a NATO group stated that if NATO infrastructure were the victim of a cyber-attack, it could lead to a physical military response such as a bombing.

The digital era is redefining the way in which wars are fought. Cyber-conflict can have a very large impact on the outcome of a conflict. Four years ago, Vladimir Sherstyuk, a member of Russia’s National Security Council and director of the Institute for Information Security Issues at Moscow State University said, in an interview with MIT Technology Review, “Cyberweapons can affect a huge amount of people, as well as nuclear, but there is one big difference between them. Cyberweapons are very cheap—almost free of charge.”

Not only is it cheaper than traditional forms of fighting, but it is also more opaque. Most of the attacks are operated by criminal gangs and “patriotic hackers” who work for each country’s cause. These groups provide cover to the government. In effect, unlike military action which is exposed to the scrutiny of the international community, cyber-activity is harder to track, and to attribute to a source.

The current crisis between Ukraine and Russia is proof that international community needs to develop a clear military doctrine concerning Cyber- attacks.

The author is a British national pursuing a journalism course at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai with a keen interest in international affairs.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of our organisation.