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Cyber Firms Warn on Suspected Russian Plan To Attack Ukraine (reuters.com)
Jim Finkle, reporting for Reuters: Cisco Systems on Wednesday warned that hackers have infected at least 500,000 routers and storage devices in dozens of countries with highly sophisticated malicious software, possibly in preparation for another massive cyber attack on Ukraine. Cisco's Talos cyber intelligence unit said it has high confidence that the Russian government is behind the campaign, dubbed VPNFilter, because the hacking software shares code with malware used in previous cyber attacks that the U.S. government has attributed to Moscow. Cisco said the malware could be used for espionage, to interfere with internet communications or launch destructive attacks on Ukraine, which has previously blamed Russia for massive hacks that took out parts of its energy grid and shuttered factories. Head of Ukraine's cyber police said on Wednesday that the agency is aware of new large malware campaign, and that it is working to protect Ukraine against possible new cyber threat.
In English, the translation is "Department of cyber police." Serhiy Demedyuk is its head.
In the USA, Douglas Maughan is Director, National Cyber Security Division of the Office of Cyber Security & Communications. Try saying that fast five times.
And the US position on Crimea's right to self determination is exactly the opposite of the US position on Kosovo's right to self determination.
It's hardly "Self determination" when Russia buses in a bunch of Russian citizens and gives them the right to vote in the Crimea right before the election. Next you'll tell me the "separatists" in the Donbass just happened to find a bunch of Russian tanks and air defense systems lying around in barns.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Ukraine is probably beyond their modern and rather peaceful divide and conquer strategy through information warfare at this point. That strategy works great in a time of relative peace, where you can make people sympathize with your side. But when you're already in a state of (proxy) war and have one side directly blaming the other for people's deaths on your doorstep other measures may be more appropriate on top of information warfare.
And cyberwarfare seems to be a smart way of fighting since it does not expose your assets to greater risks of losing them in the process. Your soldiers are pretty safe while the havoc you may cause will harm your opponent.
See also the full Cisco Talos post, New VPNFilter malware targets at least 500K networking devices worldwide, which has all of the technical details, including all indicators of compromise (IOCs).
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