Russia’s cyber-attacks against Ukraine and US-British multinationals are already under way. Last two weeks, Russian hackers allegedly broke into dozens of Ukrainian government websites, marking the start of operations on the Fifth Battlefield. According to a Microsoft investigation, they also installed malware in Ukrainian government agencies as well as in American multinational companies. The son of the President of the USA, Joe Biden, is also a member of the Board of Directors of one of the companies.
It is not yet clear who is responsible, but Russia is the main suspect. However, while Ukraine continues to feel the brunt of Russia’s attacks, government and cybersecurity experts worry that such attacks could spread globally, threatening Europe, the United States and beyond. On January 18, the US Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned critical state infrastructure operators that they needed to take “urgent, short-term action” against cyber threats, citing recent attacks on Ukraine as a reason for are on alert for potential US threats.
The agency also noted that two large-scale cyber-attacks have taken place since 2017, namely, NotPetya and WannaCry, which went out of control, quickly spread on the Internet and affected the world at a cost of billions of dollars. The CISA parallels are clear: NotPetya was a Russian cyberattack targeting Ukraine at a time of high tension. As “big” and “excessive” as the blow and the aforementioned cyber incident may seem to us, it would be good to give the appropriate weight to the attached study of the above Company. (https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/CISA_Insights-Implement_Cybersecurity_Measures_Now_to_Protect_Against_Critical_Threats_508C.pdf)
Cyber-attacking devices are tools that can be used before we are involved in bullet and missile conflicts. For this very reason, it is a tool that can be used against the United States and its allies as the situation on the Ukrainian-Russian border deteriorates further. Especially if the US and its allies take a more aggressive stance against Russia.
This scenario seems more and more likely. President Joe Biden told a news conference on January 19 that the United States could respond to future Russian cyber-attacks against Ukraine with its own cyber forces, further increasing the scope of the conflict.
Consequences of Cyber Businesses
The negative effects on the rest of the world may not be limited to deliberate retaliation by Russian agents / hackers. Unlike “conventional” warfare, cyberwarfare is not limited by borders and can more easily get out of the control of the participants. Ukraine has been the target of aggressive Russian cyber-operations for the past decade and has been invaded and occupied by the Army from Moscow in 2014. In 2015 and 2016, Russian hackers attacked the software of the entire Ukrainian electricity network and turned off the lights in its capital. Kiev – unparalleled acts of enormous strategic importance that have not taken place anywhere before or since.
The 2017 NotPetya cyberattack, as revealed by Microsoft and Amazon’s Cloud Services division, was ordered by Moscow, initially targeting Ukrainian private companies before spreading and destroying systems and software around the world. NotPetya disguised itself as ransomware, but in reality it was a purely destructive and extremely viral piece of code. The catastrophic dimension of malware that appeared in Ukraine last week, also known as WhisperGate, also pretended to be ransomware, while aiming to destroy key data that makes C2 Centers software inoperable.
Experts say that WhisperGate “resembles” NotPetya, due to the technical procedures that achieve the disaster, but also that there are significant differences. WhisperGate is less sophisticated and is not designed to spread quickly in the same way. Russia has denied any involvement. NotPetya shut down seaports and left many colossal multinationals and government agencies unable to operate. The operational term given by NATO in such attacks is that of “Partial Inactivation Strike against a Country’s Center of Gravity”. Almost everyone who traded with Ukraine was affected.
The attitude of the White House
The White House said the attack caused more than $ 10 billion in global damage and called it “the most devastating and costly cyber attack in human history.” Since 2017, there has been ongoing debate as to whether the international casualties were merely unintentional collateral damage or whether the attack targeted companies trading with Russia’s enemies. What is clear is that it can happen again.
Whether by accident or not, Hultquist expects to see cyber operations by the Russian military intelligence service GRU, the organization where, according to the aforementioned CISA document, owes much of the most aggressive cyber operations of all time, both inside and outside Ukraine. GRU’s most notorious hacking team, dubbed Sandworm by experts, is responsible for a long list of the biggest “successes”, such as the operation against the Ukrainian electricity grid in 2015, the 2017 NotPetya hack, interference in the elections of USA and France but also the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
The Hultquist is also looking for another team, known to experts as the Berserk Bear, which comes from the Russian intelligence service FSB. In 2020, US officials warned of the threat posed by the group to government networks. The German government said the same group had reached “long-term compromises” in companies as they targeted the water and electricity sectors, thus destroying the “link” that unites government with citizens, that is, state-citizen trust.
Also, whether we like it or not, China and Russia have long had access to classified construction information on F-35s through cyber operations (citing the Lexar, Byzantine Hades and SolarWind scandal) against both the US and Australian. Chinese hackers also had access to data on the stealth B-2 bomber, the F-22 fighter, space-based guided weapons, navigation and missile tracking systems, and nuclear submarine plans.
Conclusions and Critical Lessons
From 2014 onwards, NATO member states do not seem to realize the gravity of armed conflict on the planet. In Europe we may experience the “Period of Long Peace”, yet in the rest of the world transnational differences are still resolved with the Theoretical Foundations laid down by Thucydides. That is, through Hard Power and the arming of cutting-edge technologies.
That was, is and will continue to be the Rule-Law. We must understand that politics is a science like any other. Perhaps the most important. It has inviolable laws, principles, models of action and experiments. History is the laboratory of political science even today. Anyone who neglects the Law of Hard Power is like neglecting “gravity” in the science of Physics. The results it will produce ignoring this Law will be catastrophic. As did Armenia, as did Ukraine in part.
