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Russia is having a hard time on the Internet. As reported by the state news agency TASS and collected by Reuters, the websites held by the Putin government are changing a wave of cyberattacks that is unprecedented in the history of the state. "If previously its power (that of cyber attacks) at peak times reached 500 gigabytes, now it is 1 terabyte," confirmed the country's Ministry of Digital Affairs. “That is two or three times more than the most serious incidents of this type that have been previously reported,” he concludes.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been the target of systematic cyberattacks. Mainly, on government websites, but also in the media and national companies.
According to Reuters, at the moment the Kremlin is trying to filter the traffic that arrives from abroad with the aim of minimizing the number of incidents.
Assuming that, at first, everything indicates that Ukraine will bear the brunt of the Internet war, because at the moment just the opposite is happening. Currently, the country governed by Putin is the one that is receiving the most cyberattacks on a global level, according to the real-time threat map of the cybersecurity company Kaspersky. It has also been pointed out by several cybersecurity experts consulted by ABC for weeks.
“He is having a lot of attacks in both Russia and Ukraine. But the biggest growth, from what we've seen, is actually in Russia. Apparently, there are groups of different kinds, possibly a salary from the states, that are doing their job and, in addition, they are doing it well, ”Hervé Lambert, head of global operations at the cybersecurity company Panda Security, explained to this newspaper.
Lambert draws attention to the fact that, in this case, Ukraine has also asked for help on the Internet "from every living being willing to lend a hand, which has permeated different sectors of our digital world": "There are many groups supporting Ukraine, and there are a lot of people calling for action against the Kremlin."
For his part, José Rosell, director of the cybersecurity company S2 Grupo, points out to this newspaper that "there are currently a lot of false flag attacks", so it is not even possible to know for sure that the deficiencies are the specific groups that are carrying out the attacks. attacks being carried out by Russia. All in all, there are two actors who seem to be being especially active.
Anonymous and the Ukrainian cyber-guerrilla
On the one hand, Anonymous. The heterogeneous group of 'hacktivists' has been behind attacks against various Russian media, such as 'Russia 24' or 'Channel One'. It has also managed to affect the services of streaming platforms such as Wink, as shared through social networks, and steal data from Roskomnadzor, the federal service in charge of telecommunications in Russia.
Hacking collective #Anonymous hacked Russian streaming services Wink and Ivi (such as Netflix) and live TV channels Russia 24, Channel One, Moscow 24 to broadcast war footage from Ukraine. [today] pic.twitter.com/hzqcXT1xRU
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) March 6, 2022
Likewise, the government led by Zelenski has its own army of 'hackers' on Telegram, which already includes more than 300.000 native users from all over the world. Since its formation, announced via Twitter by Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, it has been launching constant denial-of-service attacks against Russian government websites, banks, and private companies.
However, Rosell explained that there could be an error in confirming that the increase in the number of cyberattacks suffered by Russia is due especially to these two small groups: . Sponsored by other countries or by other persons located in Ukraine. We find ourselves in a situation of general confusion, it is very difficult to know what is really happening”.
