Ukraine’s Digital Minister Takes to Social Media to Form “IT Army”

On Feb 26, Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation, Mykailo Federov announced the creation of a virtual volunteer cyber army, and shared via twitter:

To join the virtual army, citizens could ‘Join’ the public channel via the most popular messaging app in Ukraine, Telegram. So far, the Telegram channel has accumulated over 300,000 subscribers who have access to allocated tasks for members of the group.?

Tasks on the channel include organised distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks - which aim to overload target websites with more traffic that it can handle, rendering it inaccessible. The targets currently include 25 Russian websites, including infrastructure businesses like energy giant Gazprom.

In conjunction with this effort of resilience against the Russian force, the 31-year-old digital minister, Federov has reached out to global businesses for their support via digital channels.?

One of his attempts included calling up on cryptocurrency exchanges to freeze the accounts of Russian citizens. In response, cryptocurrency leaders such as Kraken’s CEO, Jesse Powell, posted their reasons for not following his request online.

More successfully, Federov reached out to the billionaire tech giant, Elon Musk:

In response, Elon Musk sent a truckload of Starlink antennas to the Ukraine – which can be used to connect to the company’s satellite-based internet service. The plea from Federov arose from fears that Ukrainians could lose internet access if Russia continues its attacks on communication infrastructure.?

Western Cyber Response on High Alert

On Feb 23, Ukraine was hit with a third wave of cyber-attacks, including DDoS attacks, taking down government websites and a new ‘wiper’ attack, which destroys data on infected machines.?

Although these Russian originating cyber-attacks appear to be in relation to their invasion of the Ukraine, Russia’s Ukraine focused cyber-targeting mimics Russian behaviour before the globally disruptive NotPetya Ransomware released in 2017.???

There are also other indications of globally disruptive Russian originating cyber threats. For example, Russian ransomware group, BlackCat have claimed accountability for the Colonial Pipeline Co. attack in 2021, shutting down the largest gasoline pipeline in the U.S, and more recently the Swissport cyber-attack causing flight delays and other disruptions.

Both the UK and US have released similar statements of being prepared for potential Russian cyber attacks and warned that there would be retaliation.?

“If Russia pursues cyberattacks against our companies, our critical infrastructure, we are prepared to respond,” Biden said during an address from the White House East Room.

Similarly The UK’s secretary of defence announced that it may launch offensive cyber operations against Russia if the Kremlin attacks UK computer systems after an invasion of Ukraine.?

The NCSC has also urged UK organizations to bolster their cyber resilience in relation to the events in and around the Ukraine.

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