Hacking groups launching ‘cyber proxy war’ over Ukraine attacks by Russia
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Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is leading hacking groups worldwide to increase their activities — in some cases to support a side, or possibly just to capitalize on the chaos.
Since the invasion of Ukraine earlier this week, the Anonymous hacker collective, the Conti ransomware gang and a threat actor in Belarus are among those that appear to have gotten more active — or at least expressed intentions to be. Meanwhile, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a warning Thursday about a growing threat from an Iranian advanced persistent threat (APT) actor.
During the Cold War, “the superpowers fought many small wars by proxy,” said Sam Curry, CSO at Cybereason. “Today, we can expect a cyber proxy war to emerge.”
Anonymous
Anonymous has declared itself aligned with “Western allies” and said it would only target operations in Russia. The group has posted a number of claims on Twitter.
“The Anonymous collective is officially in cyber war against the Russian government,” the group tweeted.
On Thursday, Anonymous claimed on Twitter that it brought down numerous websites associated with the Russian government. Those included a state news site, RT News, which reportedly confirmed that it had experienced a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
Calling the news site “propaganda,” Anonymous said the DDoS attack was carried out “in response to Kremlin’s brutal invasion of #Ukraine.”
Then on Friday, Anonymous tweeted that it has “successfully breached and leaked the database of the Russian Ministry of Defence website,” and claimed to have posted “all private data of the Russian MOD.” (The tweet was subsequently taken down because it “violated the Twitter Rules,” the site says.)
The group had earlier tweeted a video, featuring its signature Guy Fawkes-masked figure, saying that “if tensions continue to worsen in Ukraine, then we can take hostage industrial control systems.”
The involvement of Anonymous is not a surprise, since the group is “well-known for having a…
