US, Allies Claim Russia Wages Massive Cyberattack Against Ukraine's Satellite Internet Since Invasion Began

The United States and European nations declared on Tuesday that a cyberattack that took down satellite communications in Ukraine in the hours before the February 24 invasion was the work of the Russian government, officially blaming the Russian government for an attack that rattled the Pentagon officials and private industry because it revealed new vulnerabilities in global communications systems.

The nations accused Moscow of a unified statement but did not name the entity that carried out the sophisticated campaign to block Ukrainian communications.

Russia Behind Cyberattack in Ukraine

However, American sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the nature of the discoveries claimed it was the Russian military intelligence agency, the G.R.U., which was also behind the 2016 breach of the Democratic National Committee and a slew of other attacks on the US and Ukraine.

The attack targeted a system operated by Viasat, a California-based corporation that offers high-speed satellite communication services, which the Ukrainian government relied on extensively. The attack happened only weeks after 'wiper' malware was used to wipe data from certain Ukrainian government websites.

Officials in the United States and Europe have warned that cyberweapons are frequently unpredictable, and the Viasat intrusion demonstrated how rapidly a cyberattack may spread beyond its intended targets. NotPetya is a Russian cyberattack that began in Ukraine in 2017 and swiftly moved around the world, impacting the operations of Maersk, a Danish shipping behemoth, and other significant corporations, New York Times reported.

Russia has launched many cyberattacks against Ukraine over the last eight years. Hackers working for the Kremlin triggered electrical shortages in 2015 and 2016, leaving hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without heat during one of the coldest months of the year.

In the months leading up to Russia's invasion of its neighboring nation in January 2022, Russia launched a slew of different cyberattacks against Ukrainian targets, including distributed denial-of-service assaults, website defacements, and wiper operations.

Russia Also Targets electricity Infratructure

Aside from the two assaults on Ukraine's energy system, evidence suggests that Russia was also behind NotPetya, a disk wiper that began in Ukraine and spread throughout the world, causing an estimated $10 billion in damage. The US sanctioned Russia in 2018 for the NotPetya hack and electoral meddling in 2016.

Critics have long said that the US and its allies did not do enough to punish Russia for NotPetya and the 2015 and 2016 assaults on Ukraine, which are the only known real-world cyberattacks that have knocked out power, as per ARS Technica.

On Tuesday, the State Department provided further details on how the US government is assisting Kyiv in fending against a wave of suspected Russian hacking.

The US Agency for International Development has hired contractors to help Ukrainian government agencies and vital infrastructure identify malicious malware and restore services. According to the State Department, the FBI has been briefing Ukrainian officials on Russian intelligence agencies' hacking efforts and getting tips on cyber risks for the FBI to examine.

In a statement, the European Council said the hack was yet another example of Russia's persistent pattern of reckless behavior in cyberspace, which also forms an important component of its unlawful and illegitimate invasion of Ukraine, according to CNN.