Categories: Cyber warfareIntelligenceSecurity

Possible evolution of the dispute between Russia and Ukraine

Intelligence Analysts analyzing signals from the cyberspace have tried to predict the evolution of the dispute between Ukraine and Russia.

The correlation of the events in the reality with ongoing activities in the cyber space is an essential part of the OSINT analysis. Security experts at Recorded Future, a firm partly funded by the CIA venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, affirms that significant increase of Russian state-sponsored attacks could coincide with deadlines of Ukrainian paying for energy to Russian companies.

Analysts at Recorded Future analyzed the activities related to Oil&Gas trade from social media platforms, trade reports, news, blog and many other open source used to compose a timeline of the principal event occurred in during the diplomatic crisis between Russia and Ukraine.

The analysts operate mainly to predict future fights and quarrels in the cyberspace, Recorded Future elaborated information on 55 references to future events that are related to dispute between the two governments.

Analysts have focused on the Ukrainian government debt contract with Russian Gazprom for the supply of energy, regime officials confirmed that Ukraine must pay nearly $3.5 billion for fuel it has already used and other payments.

Gazprom has also announced the interruption of the gas supply for domestic use in June, for this reason analysts have hyphotesized that Russian cyber units could intensify their operation against Ukrainian critical infrastructure like communication systems. It must be considered that Russia is within the government with most advanced cyber capabilities, according to many cyber experts it has developed an arsenal of sophisticated cyber weapons.

“We generally make a point that cyber capabilities are just one tool in the geopolitical toolkit,” “Cyberattacks don’t occur in a vacuum, and they occur in support of specific objectives,” reported Scott Donnelly, an open source researcher with the CIA-backed startup.

Intelligence Analysts at Recorded Future reported that future prolonged distributed denial of service attacks against Ukraine could be linked to upcoming events, as evidence the escalation of the conflict or a possible presidential election on May 25th.

I bilieve that this kind of analysis is fundamental for the understanding of the phenomena, the cyberspace could reveal us much more than we think!

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – OSINT, Cyber warfare, Ukraine, Russia)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.