Russia's Longtime Cyber War against Ukraine

Even as Russia launches a full-scale assault on Ukraine, in cyberspace Russia-backed hackers have been attacking Ukraine since 2014.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for a ‘special military operation’ has thrown caution to the wind and Ukraine is now under full-scale land-based assault from Russian forces.
• In the digital realm, Russia-backed hackers have been raging a cyberwar in Ukraine for many years, affecting not just government websites but also critical infrastructure affecting daily life.
• In 2017, a computer virus named NotPetya affected not just Ukrainian banks, electricity firms and government ministries, but spread to eight other countries leading to a loss of over $10 billion.
• Even as Russian troops were surrounding Ukraine over the last couple of months, Russian hackers were back to defacing and disrupting Ukraine’s banks, ministries and other state portals.
• As the West keeps piling on economic sanctions on Russia, there are speculations that Russia could rely on digital currencies to bypass global financial roadblocks.
• Six EU nations making the Cyber Rapid Response Team have offered to help Ukraine fend off cyberattacks. Here, we look at this cyber dimension of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.