Russia-Ukraine Conflict: What Role & Implications Do ‘Cyber Attacks’ Play?
The traditional three-pronged national defence of the Army, Air force, and Navy necessitates the addition of Cyberforce as a fourth dimension. Cybersecurity has become an essential component of every country’s national security. Cyberspace is transforming into a new battleground for cyber troops
Cyber-attacks are an integral aspect of modern warfare. They have been used to demoralise and propagate falsehoods in Russia’s conflict against Ukraine. Such actions may have a serious influence on the battlefield. The current conflict is not only a face-to-face conflict between the two country’s militaries, but also between cyber troops. When Russia attacked the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, it utilised cyber operations against Ukraine. The cyber-attack was carried out by the Russian organised cybercrime group Fancy Bear, according to CrowdStrike. They utilised malware to infect an Android application used to manage the target data by the D-30 Howitzer artillery regiment. Ukrainian officers made extensive use of the X-Agent spyware-infected program. It was a highly effective attack, with approximately 80% of Ukraine’s D-30 howitzers destroyed.
The effectiveness of a cyber-attack on a large scale on a battlefield was demonstrated to the rest of the world. It gave the topic of military strategies a new depth.
Let’s look at how cyber troops serve a country’s army, air force, and navy in a real conflict. The automation of sensitive material is not an aberration to the global digital revolution. It has rendered sensitive data exposed to a coordinated cyberattack. Malware is planted on computer systems that are used to obtain sensitive data by attackers. They achieve this by infecting computers with malware via email attachments. They also trick the target official into opening infected files by imitating a trusted social network user. The malware is generally kept as sleeper cells. They cause mayhem during the conflict by limiting access to crucial systems and exploiting sensitive data.
The DDOS attack is another cyberwar method. Let’s take a look at it from the average person’s point of view. Consider a doctor who sees 20 patients in a single day. Suddenly, there is a two-thousand-strong line of so-called patients waiting to see the doctor. They’re going to squander his clinical time. Many legitimate patients will be denied service as a result. Let’s make a comparison to a DDOS attack. Banks, payment gateways, insurance companies, stock exchanges, government services, and telecommunication corporations all have servers that can handle a reasonable amount of traffic. Consider what would happen if the attackers suddenly flooded these servers with bogus service requests. The networks will be overloaded, and legitimate users will be unable to access the programs. There will be panic and massive losses as a result. Propaganda using social media is another cyberwar method. In the past, social media has been used to sway elections, destabilise governments, distort information to undermine public trust, and propagate misinformation around the world. We just witnessed a fresh cyber attack tactic. It’s all about tracking the whereabouts and movements of VIPs. Elon Musk’s jet was recently live-streamed by a young hacker. Vladimir Putin experienced the same situation.
Another novel kind of hacking targets businesses that provide solutions to selected countries and businesses. Recent Solarwind Attacks are typical examples of similar types of attacks. Let us go over it in detail. SolarWinds is a large software corporation headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hundreds of thousands of businesses rely on it for system administration and infrastructure monitoring solutions. Orion, and IT performance measurement solution, is one of its products.
SolarWinds Orion, as an IT monitoring solution, has unrestricted access to critical systems to acquire log and network performance data. SolarWinds was a valuable and appealing target because of its privileged position and widespread deployment. The Orion network management solution is used by over 30,000 public and private organisations, especially local, state, and federal authorities, to manage their IT resources. As a result, the attack compromised thousands of people’s data, networks, and systems. In other words, the backdoor malware was provided mistakenly by SolarWinds as an upgrade towards the Orion software.
Targeting satellites, eavesdropping on satellite communications, blocking satellite access, acquiring control of power distribution grids, and wireless connectivity of nuclear plants are the future of cyber warfare. A similar futuristic attack, called the Stuxnet Attack, occurred against Iran’s nuclear program. Malware infiltrated External drives and took control of data and centralised management systems. It severely harmed Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons.
China is the country that recognised the need for cybersecurity a long time ago. Its information technology policies virtually segregate it from the rest of the globe in cyberspace. To put it another way, they’ve built a tremendous cyber-fortress around themselves.
Summing up: In a nutshell, the traditional three-pronged national defense of the Army, Air force, and Navy necessitates the addition of Cyberforce as a fourth dimension. Cybersecurity has become an essential component of every country’s national security. Cyberspace is transforming into a new battleground for cyber troops.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors’ and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house. Unless otherwise noted, the author is writing in his/her personal capacity. They are not intended and should not be thought to represent official ideas, attitudes, or policies of any agency or institution.
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