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According to retired Admiral Michael S. Rogers, while no major Russian cyberattacks have been seen so far in the Kremlin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Americans should expect increased cyber operations targeting the private sector.
Admiral Rogers, who previously headed the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command, expects cyberattacks created by Russia to spread in the coming weeks and months. He said the public will know when such attacks occur.
“You will see more cyber action against governments and armies, but what is most interesting to me is that I think you will see an increase against economic targets in the US and elsewhere in the world,” he said.
adm. Rogers said Russian President Vladimir Putin could use the threat of devastating cyber action as leverage against his rivals in the Ukraine conflict and put pressure on the US homeland in response to sanctions imposed by the Biden administration and its allies.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was not accompanied by an apparent cyberwarfare that some professionals fear would turn off the lights, disrupt essential services and shut down communication networks. While some cyber experts feel that the obscure cyberspace battlefield is hindering greater awareness of the ongoing wars, others suggest that such devastation could still hit Ukraine and spread more broadly to Europe and the United States.
Instead of openly warring nations in cyberspace, hacking groups have become the leading infantrymen in virtual warfare and organized on social media and messaging platforms to disrupt targets associated with the Russian government. Activist hacking group Anonymous has already taken credit for crashing Russian government websites since the conflict a little over a week ago.
Hackers sympathetic to Russia also suffered. After ransomware gang Conti announced its support for the Russian government, its internal communications were leaked online amid speculation that a Ukrainian insider or security researcher was responsible. Conti was one of the gangs that beat up US infrastructure last year, and the FBI said it observed Conti going after American healthcare networks.
New information from the leaks provides more insight into the ransomware gang’s alleged ties to the Russian government and may provide US law enforcement with new clues to take down cybercriminals. Christo Grozev, Russia principal investigator of digital watchdog Bellingcat, tweeted on Twitter that his group believes Based on the leaked information, the Conti gang targeted one of the Bellingcat contributors in the direction of Russia’s Federal Security Service FSB.
Cybersecurity experts investigating the leaks said it was too early to definitively link Russian intelligence to Conti’s actions.
Randy Pargman, vice president of counterintelligence at Binary Defense, said there certainly appears to be cooperation between the two sides, but it is premature to draw any strong conclusions.
Mr Pargman said among the most interesting revelations of the Conti leak so far are the Conti gang’s human resources operations, including the alleged use of an unnamed French company to acquire technology to test the gang’s attacks, and how the group interviewed job candidates. .
The leaked data also includes information about the gang’s financing and previously undisclosed victims. GuidePoint Security chief threat intelligence analyst Drew Schmitt said estimates that Conti received more than $2 billion in commissions from ransomware extortion efforts were reasonable.
Mr Schmitt said the messages referring to the gang’s money flow and cryptocurrency wallets would make it possible to trace the group’s finances. He also said that reading chat logs will help the cybersecurity industry learn about the gang’s behavior and better understand how to defend against ransomware in the future.
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