© ShahBlogger. FILE PHOTO: A hooded man holds a laptop computer laptop as cyber code is projected on him on this illustration image taken on Could 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photograph
By James Pearson
LONDON (ShahBlogger) – Russian cyber spies have been behind a hack which disrupted a part of Ukraine’s energy grid in late 2022, U.S. cybersecurity agency Mandiant, a part of Google (NASDAQ:), mentioned in a report on Thursday, in a uncommon and superior type of cyberwarfare.
Profitable hacks towards industrial management methods are comparatively distinctive, with Russia one of many few international locations with the capabilities to hold out such cyberattacks.
“This assault represents the newest evolution in Russia’s cyber bodily assault functionality, which has been more and more seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” mentioned the report, which didn’t determine the precise facility towards which the assault had been carried out.
Final October, a large wave of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy community prompted blackouts in lots of components of the nation, prompting Kyiv to halt electrical energy exports and leaving 4 areas quickly with out electrical energy.
The hacking group, identified in cybersecurity analysis circles by the moniker “Sandworm”, was in a position to trigger an influence lower in an unidentified space of Ukraine by tripping circuit breakers at {an electrical} substation similtaneously the missile strike, the report mentioned. The group then deployed data-wiping malware in a bid to cowl their tracks, the report added.
Sandworm has been beforehand recognized as a cyberwarfare unit of Russia’s GRU navy intelligence company.
Russia’s overseas ministry didn’t reply to a request for remark. The GRU couldn’t be reached for remark. Ukraine’s overseas ministry and its SBU intelligence company didn’t present remark.
Sandworm hackers rose to prominence in 2015 after a separate cyberattack towards Ukraine’s energy grid which lower off energy for round 255,000 folks. The disruptive, digital, intrusion was extensively thought of to be one of many first, identified, profitable cyberattacks towards an influence community.
“There have solely been a handful of incidents much like this, with the bulk carried out by Sandworm,” Mandiant analyst Nathan Brubaker mentioned.
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