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.

Comments

Black List

[Only Time Will Tell]

At what point can we just sever as much internet traffic out of Russia to the world? I know I'm massively oversimplifying that effort, but should there not be some sort of 'death penalty' against countries engaging in cyber warfare? China and some other smaller nations would likely keep connections which would make it hard to filter between Russian and Chinese communications, but any directly from Russia could be subject to either massive slowdown or complete blocking.

Re:Black List

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't throw stones inside a glass house. Stuxnet was perpetrated by the USA and Israel. If some other country did the same thing to the USA, it would be counted as an act of war and the USA has stated it would retaliate with any means it sees fit and not limit the response to "cyber" warfare.

Re:How massive?

[KixWooder]

Squirrels and/or hurricanes aren't malicious actors with intent.

Russia failing to make friends

[Anonymous Coward]

If Russia is trying to convince Ukraine to ally with Russia instead of the European Union, they are going about it in exactly the wrong way.

Re:Russia failing to make friends

[Nidi62]

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.

Re:Russia failing to make friends

[Kjella]

On the contrary, an ongoing territorial dispute may be the best way to lock Ukraine in a stalemale, the way Cyprus had the EU stalled and like China and Taiwan are today. Russia has been losing allies since the 90s, back then the dividing line ran through Germany now they've lost pretty much all of Eastern Europe from the Baltics in the north to the Slavic countries in the south and the western sphere of influence has been crawling eastwards into ex-Soviet territory. Maybe the country was divided when the unrest started but I think in a few years Russia would be holding the short end of that stick anyway.

A full membership in EU/NATO would put them right at Putin's doorstep. Not just the proximity to Moscow, Ukraine is big both in terms of territory and manpower while Crimea is absolutely essential to Russia's navy. Maybe this will push the people in a pro-western direction but formally this makes Ukraine a hot potato because either you acknowledge their full territory which would make you a party to the conflict or you de facto recognize that Russia has taken it and isn't going to give it back, both of which are politically untenable. Even if it's not a hot conflict it can potentially stall things for decades and if anyone gets too cozy I'm sure the unrest will flare up for reasons "unknown".

I think Putin got all he could reasonably hope for, maybe he was hoping for a massive overreaction so he could send Russian tanks all the way to Kiev to protect the Russian minority but I doubt it as it would have been really messy. The Ukrainian response was also clearly limited to avoid provoking an all-out war with Russia, they certainly could have struck back harder. As for Putin, how many allies does he have left to lose? There's Belarus that he got in his pocket, he's supporting a few whack jobs down in the Middle East but as a military and economic bloc he's pretty lonely unless he gets friendly with China. I think he just wants it to stop before Russia has their own Euromaidan...

Re:"Head of Ukraine's cyber police" LOL!

[Dzimas]

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.

Re:Duh!

[Oswald McWeany]

Ya think?

Actually, name one country that they aren't attacking.

According to all the people named Ivan that post on Slashdot; Russia is a model democracy, a shining beacon of friendship in the world, and would never consider violating another country's rights on stability. Russia certainly are not cyber attacking any country.

Wait for the correct timezone to hit rushhour Slashdot traffic.

Full technical Talos VPNFilter post

[Khopesh]

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).