Tag Archive for: Wars

Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas Wars Reveal All [Cyber] Conflicts Are Global

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During an impassioned public plea in October, President Joe Biden linked the Gaza and Ukraine conflicts, saying each is “vital for America’s national security.” The subsequent funding bill also linked the two and quickly became political, with debates about the connection raging. 

However, while debates continue, cyberspace reflects the two conflicts being intimately linked to broader geopolitical alliances. It also serves as proof of the blurring lines between traditional hacktivism as an ideologically motivated activity and organized nation-state actor attacks. 

Cyber War’s Reach

The wide-reaching effects of cyber war mean that even civilians of countries not directly involved in a war might be impacted.

For instance, in 2020, Israel faced a significant cyber threat targeting critical water infrastructure. For the US, this threat became a reality in 2023. The Iranian CyberAv3ngers group exploited vulnerabilities in US industrial control systems, revealing significant cybersecurity weaknesses in American water utilities.

The nature of modern cyber warfare adds a global aspect to nearly every conflict. Nations must tackle the issue with universally coordinated and revamped tactics able to combat sophisticated nation-states in a truly global digital battlefield.

The Blurring of Lines

The trend of cybercriminals declaring allegiances to nation-states and actively participating in geopolitical conflicts comes as the distinction between hacktivists, cybercriminals, and nation-state actors continues to erode.

Hacktivist groups, such as SiegedSec, have been acting against the West by declaring allegiances to Russia and targeting Israel’s government infrastructure and Shufersal, the country’s largest supermarket chain.

The increasingly complex web of alliances and motives in the cyber realm means that nation-state actors, traditionally associated with espionage, are now engaging in economic crimes. North Korean state actors are this trend’s epitome, being responsible for a quarter of all global cryptocurrency currency thefts.

Meanwhile, Chinese state actors have gone to unprecedented lengths to conduct economic espionage and intellectual property theft. These actors routinely…

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We must treat cyber wars the same as we treat conventional military encounters

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Pictures and videos emanating from Ukraine show the widespread destruction wrought by Russian troops during a year-long war that continuously generates news coverage. But there is another side to this conflict that is lesser known and harder to see.

A parallel war has been running alongside Russia’s conventional ground invasion, one that involves unrelenting cyber attacks across various segments of Ukrainian society, if with less success than many experts initially anticipated. Mixed results aside, this cyber warfare at times has been significant enough that lines are being blurred between where cyber attacks stop and conventional warfare begins.

Since the start of the invasion in late February 2022, Russian actors have attacked Ukraine with two primary goals: to damage critical infrastructure and to exfiltrate or destroy data. According to Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team, more than 2,000 cyber attacks plagued Ukraine in 2022 alone. Taking it a step further, at least eight different forms of malware have been used by Russian saboteurs in the past year, according to Microsoft, 40 percent of which were targeted at “critical infrastructure sectors.” Other targets included Ukrainian government websites, financial institutions, energy and communication service providers, and media outlets.

Russia’s intense use of cyber attacks in Ukraine predates its ground invasion by at least eight years. When Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, suspected Russian hackers knocked out power to 230,000 customers in western Ukraine. Two years later, suspected Russian hackers used malware to disrupt Ukrainian airports, railways and banks. One month before its ground invasion last February, Russia launched a massive cyber attack targeting government institutions in an attempt to weaken Ukraine’s position ahead of the impending military action.

These types of crimes aren’t unique to Ukraine and exist in the absence of active war. In 2007, hackers attacked Estonia in what is believed to be the first major cyberattack on an entire country, crippling banks, government websites and media companies. Closer to home, a ransomware attack in 2021 disabled the…

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Bloodless hidden Cyber Wars against India

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Mass invisible bloodless cyber-attacks on our country’s institutions and organisations cripple our economy, industry, governance and national security. These attacks can be secretive, more often lethal and more severe than any military operation(s), which are more visible in physical deaths, bloodshed and destruction. These global and lower-scale attacks are becoming everyday occurrences like accidents, wars, fires, unauthorised access and excessively employed for sabotage, subversion and espionage through cyber warfare means of unlimited reach. This ‘white chair borne terrorism’ covers a broad spectrum of cyber-crimes encompassing Aeronautics, Airports, Banks, Defence, DRDO, Education, Hospitals, Hotels, Mints, Nuclear Energy, Oil, Power, Ports, Prasar Bharti (AIR & Doordarshan Kendras) Railways, Refineries, Space, Ship Building, Telecom & various vital Research Centres & Laboratories; in fact in every sphere of human activity. The FICN (Fake Indian Currency Notes) is being pumped by Pakistan in collaboration with China and other inimical forces to derail our economy, causing Economic Disaster to ruin and devastate our country without crossing LOC/IB and firing a bullet. Shockingly, often the FICN entering via Pakistan and some south Asian countries are so well designed that the original currency looks pale inferior.

Our adversaries, Pakistan and China, have realised that bullying India along IB/LOC/LAC will only work in tandem with Cyber Warfare co-opted seriously against India in conflict resolution to their choice and likings.

The recent cyber-attack on all the servers of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, was allegedly launched by China from Hanan province and Hong Kong, but the person, organisation and exact location have not been identified. Even if these are identified, then the possibility of using proxy or virtual servers by attackers does not exist. The Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO), a cyber-terrorism unit of the Delhi Police, on 25 Nov 2022, registered a case of extortion and cyber terrorism. Multiple agencies, including The National Intelligence Agency (NIA), National Forensic Science University (NFSU), Delhi…

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Cyber, info wars are new security threats facing the world: Rajnath | Latest News India

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Ahmedabad: It has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between internal and external security threats due to technological advancements, defence minister Rajnath Singh on Monday, as he cautioned against possible misuse of independent social media, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and judiciary by certain forces to destroy the nation’s unity and security.

“New kinds of threats are coming to the fore which have blurred the line between internal and external security in a hybrid warfare. Besides terrorism, cyber war and information war are the new forms of security threats,” Singh said while addressing the second convocation of the Rashtriya Raksha University at Lavad in Gandhinagar district.

“In addition, there are problems like human trafficking and money laundering which are different in appearance, but are related to one other. All the agencies must work in an integrated manner to deal with these challenges,” he added.

An independent social media can be used to carry out systematic propaganda (against the country’s security), the defence minister said. “Freedom of social media is not bad, media should be free, but if media is free, it can be misused… Attempts are made to establish and propagate dangerous and controversial things in the name of freedom of expression,” he said.

“If NGOs have freedom, efforts are made to use NGOs in such a way that the entire system of the country is paralysed. If the judiciary has freedom, efforts are made to use it to stop or slow down the works of development using the legal system. If a country has a dynamic democracy, then an effort is made to infiltrate political parties to attack its unity and security,” he added.

The government has adopted a holistic approach to strengthen all aspects of national security, he said.

Later in the day, Singh said that India registered defence exports worth ₹8,000 crore in six months of the current financial year and aims to achieve the annual export target of ₹35,000 crore by 2025.

Speaking at the curtain raiser event of DefExpo, which is set…

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