The United States and the United Kingdom said on Friday that Russian military hackers were behind distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that knocked Ukrainian banking and government websites offline.
America’s Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger told reporters at the White House that Washington is trying to get hold of Russia Responsible for its aggressive moves in cyberspace.
“Russia prefers to roam in the shade and relies on a lengthy process of implantation,” Neuberger said. “In light of that, we are moving quickly to attribute this DDoS attack. We believe the Russian government is responsible for the widespread attacks on Ukraine’s banks this week.”
Neuberger said the Americans had data showing that infrastructure linked to Russia’s military agency, commonly known as the GRU, “was seen to be transmitting high volumes of communications.” Ukraine-based IP addresses and domains.”
In an accompanying announcement, British officials said the GRU was “almost certainly involved” in DDoS, which works by flooding targeted websites with firehose of data.
Britain’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said the attack “demonstrated a continued disregard for Ukraine’s sovereignty.” Statement, “This activity is another example of Russia’s aggressive acts against Ukraine.”
“This disruptive behavior is unacceptable,” the FCDO said.
Russia has denied any role in the DDoS, which gave relatively limited disruption on Tuesday.
Kiev had already blamed Moscow for the DDoS amid heightened tensions since Russia began a massive deployment of troops along the border, raising fears that Russia was planning an attack. The Kremlin has denied plans to push deeper into the country.
Neuberger said that while the denial of service had “limited impact”, the recent spread of malicious digital activity may have precipitated a “more disruptive cyberattack with potential further invasion of the sovereign territory of Ukraine”.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
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