Are Russian hackers infecting critical infrastructure in Ukraine?

The Ukrainian Government is blaming Russians state-sponsored hackers for several electricity cut-offs that occurred in Western Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Government is suffering a series of power outages in the Western region of the country, likely caused by cyber attacks.

The Ukrainian Government believes that the power outages are caused by operations conducted by Russian nation-state actors.

“hacker attacks by Russia[n] special services”.

According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), experts have discovered malware infecting the critical infrastructure of the country; the malicious code targeted networks of some utilities.

The malware infections were observed in conjunction with a “non-stop telephone flood at utility plants’ technical support departments.” According to the local media, Ukraine is suffering information warfare attacks.

“Experts detected virus software was found in some networks, SBU says. The virus attack was timed with nonstop telephone flood at utility plants’ technical support departments.”

The Security Service of Ukraine also confirmed that its experts reportedly foiled other attacks conducted by Russian hackers. Russian agents attempted to infiltrate the computer networks of a number of electricity utility companies.

It is not the first time that the Ukrainian Government has suffered attacks alleged launched by Russian hackers. The number of attacks during the dispute between the two countries over the control of Crimea.

Last Christmas Eve, infrastructure in Ukraine suffered numerous power outages that were attributed to cyber attacks operated by Russian hackers.

While the Government of Kiev is blaming Russian hackers, the Russian Government hasn’t replied to the accusation. There are also other possible explanations for the numerous power outages, including accidental failures caused by animals and weather conditions.

There are, anyway, if confirmed, the news of the presence of a malware targeting the national infrastructure, and it is more likely the involvement of a foreign government, but as usually happens in this case, the problem of attribution has no simple resolution.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Information Warfare, Russia, Ukraine, nation-state attacks)