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From Russian Sources
Ukraine is raising an army of hackers to help it fight Russia in cyberspace. The country’s Ministry of Defense launched a cry on hacker forums, and within a few hours, hundreds of potential cyber soldiers responded to the call.
They will protect important Ukrainian infrastructure from hacking, as well as attack Russia. Ukraine assembles cyber army
According to the agency, calls to help the country are posted on hacker forums. Messages sent out by the Ukrainian military contain an offer to take part in the cyber war, but on the side of Ukraine.
The messages sent by the Ukrainian military contain an offer to take part in the cyber war, but on the side of Ukraine. At the same time, hackers who are ready to go to the virtual front must send a special statement to the Ukrainian authorities, implemented in the form of a regular Google Docs form. In it, they need to indicate their “specialization”, that is, what they do on the Internet. For example, they may indicate that they are developing malware
specialization”, that is, what they do on the Internet. For example, they may indicate that they are developing malware.
“Ukrainian cyber community! It’s time to take care of the cyber defense of our country, ”the call of the Ministry of Defense reads. At the same time, it is not known what fate awaits those who will give themselves away and start working for the state.
First details
Reuters experts found out that the appeal to the hackers was not made by the employees of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine themselves. According to them, the military acted only as a customer, and Egor Aushev, co-founder of the cybersecurity company Cyber Unit Technologies, fulfilled the order. According to the official website of the company, its offices are based in the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Ukraine.
Dr. Yegor Aushev 2ndCo-founder at Cyber Unit Technologies & Cyber SchoolNational Technical University of Ukraine 'Kyiv Polytechnic Institute' CyberUnitUkraine
Aushev’s company, according to Reuters, is known for working with the Ukrainian government to protect critical infrastructure. Later, Yegor Aushev told the agency that he wrote this post at the request of a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Defense, who contacted him on Thursday, February 24, 2022. Aushev did not disclose the name of the official.
Reuters received confirmation of the involvement of the Ministry of Defense from another performer. In other words, Yegor Aushev could not have been engaged in agitation of hackers alone, and it is still not known for certain how many people volunteered to help the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine gather a “cyber army”.
Defense and attack
The plans of the Ukrainian military include the creation of two armies at once, consisting of cybercriminals. According to Yegor Aushev, some of the fighters of the virtual front will be engaged in the cyber defense of Ukraine, while others will attack the country’s enemy in the virtual space.
Cyber defenders will have to fight off attacks by enemy hackers on various infrastructure facilities in Ukraine, including power plants and water supply systems. Probably, the country’s authorities do not want a repeat of 2015, when unknown hackers left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without electricity.
We also recall that in January 2022, government websites of Ukraine were subjected to a large-scale hack. They were put out of action for several days. The attack was attributed to Russian hackers, but there is no evidence of this.
Aushev added that the offensive part of the cyber soldiers of Ukraine will be engaged, among other things, in intelligence. Hackers will collect information about Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine. “We have an army inside the country,” Aushev said. “We need to know what they are doing.”
Volunteers found
Reuters experts were able to get in touch with Aushev late in the evening on February 24, 2022. He said that in the first few hours after the call was placed, he received “hundreds” of applications.
According to him, now each of the applicants must pass a test to make sure that he is not a Russian cyber spy pretending to be a Ukrainian hacker patriot. How exactly the check will be carried out, and whether the Ukrainian military will participate in it, Aushev did not specify.
Russia gets rid of hackers
While Ukraine is gathering its cyberarmy, Russia, on the contrary, is pushing back domestic hackers. In the first two months of 2022, the Russian security forces defeated several groups at once.
The first to be taken into custody were hackers from the REvil group. As it turned out, among them were not only ordinary burglars, but also big businessmen, including the owner of the Vincent restaurant in St. Petersburg, which is popular among celebrities from all over the world.
Following REvil, Russian hackers from the group The Infraud Organization, which the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) calls “the largest group of fraudsters in US history that has ever been investigated,” were arrested. At the beginning of February 2022, six more hackers were detained, members of the third group, the name of which has not yet been disclosed. Finally, in mid-February 2022, a Russian court passed sentences on members of the Russian hacker group Lurk. Its head will receive 14 years in a strict regime colony, others will spend up to 13 years behind bars.