The Russian hacking group Turla released an Android app that seems to aid Ukrainian hackers in their attacks against Russian networks. It’s actually malware, and provides information back to the Russians: The hackers pretended to be a “community of free people around the world who are fighting russia’s aggression”—much like the IT Army. But the … Read More “Russia Creates Malware False-Flag App” »
Category: ukraine
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Interesting paper by Lennart Maschmeyer: “The Subversive Trilemma: Why Cyber Operations Fall Short of Expectations“: Abstract: Although cyber conflict has existed for thirty years, the strategic utility of cyber operations remains unclear. Many expect cyber operations to provide independent utility in both warfare and low-intensity competition. Underlying these expectations are broadly shared assumptions that information … Read More “The Limits of Cyber Operations in Wartime” »
Microsoft has a comprehensive report on the dozens of cyberattacks — and even more espionage operations — Russia has conducted against Ukraine as part of this war: At least six Russian Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors and other unattributed threats, have conducted destructive attacks, espionage operations, or both, while Russian military forces attack the country … Read More “Microsoft Issues Report of Russian Cyberattacks against Ukraine” »
A Russian cyberweapon, similar to the one used in 2016, was detected and removed before it could be used. Key points: ESET researchers collaborated with CERT-UA to analyze the attack against the Ukrainian energy company The destructive actions were scheduled for 2022-04-08 but artifacts suggest that the attack had been planned for at least two … Read More “Russian Cyberattack against Ukrainian Power Grid Prevented” »
Based on two years of leaked messages, 60,000 in all: The Conti ransomware gang runs like any number of businesses around the world. It has multiple departments, from HR and administrators to coders and researchers. It has policies on how its hackers should process their code, and shares best practices to keep the group’s members … Read More “A Detailed Look at the Conti Ransomware Gang” »
It has been interesting to notice how unimportant and ineffective cyber operations have been in the Russia-Ukraine war. Russia launched a wiper against Ukraine at the beginning, but it was found and neutered. Near as I can tell, the only thing that worked was the disabling of regional KA-SAT SATCOM terminals. It’s probably too early … Read More “Where’s the Russia-Ukraine Cyberwar?” »
Tarah Wheeler and Josephine Wolff analyze a recent court decision that the NotPetya attacks are not considered an act of war under the wording of Merck’s insurance policy, and that the insurers must pay the $1B+ claim. Wheeler and Wolff argue that the judge “did the right thing for the wrong reasons..” Powered by WPeMatico
Both Russia and Ukraine are preparing for military operations in cyberspace. Powered by WPeMatico
Interesting story about a barcode scanner app that has been pushing malware on to Android phones. The app is called Barcode Scanner. It’s been around since 2017 and is owned by the Ukrainian company Lavabird Ldt. But a December 2020 update included some new features: However, a rash of malicious activity was recently traced back … Read More “Malicious Barcode Scanner App” »
Kalyna is a block cipher that became a Ukrainian national standard in 2015. It supports block and key sizes of 128, 256, and 512 bits. Its structure looks like AES but optimized for 64-bit CPUs, and it has a complicated key schedule. Rounds range from 10-18, depending on block and key sizes. There is some … Read More “Kalyna Block Cipher” »