Report Microsoft: Cybercrime plays a much bigger role in war in Ukraine than previously thought

The US tech giant speaks of “Russia’s destructive and relentless cyber-attacks in its hybrid war against Ukraine”. Those attacks “not only damaged the systems of Ukrainian institutions, but also aimed to disrupt the population’s access to reliable information and vital services,” said Tom Burt, vice president of customer security at Microsoft.

Just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “we saw at least six separate actors with ties to the Russian state launch more than 237 operations against Ukraine, including devastating attacks that continue to this day and threaten the well-being of civilians,” he continues.

Microsoft also states that the timing of the cyber attacks is very similar to the operations of the Russian military. For example, important radio and TV companies in Ukraine were targeted on March 1, the day the TV tower in Kiev was bombed.

According to Burt, the cyberattacks used “a wide variety of techniques to gain access to the targets”, including phishing and exploiting security vulnerabilities. The number of observed attacks may be only “a fraction” of the actual number, it still sounds.

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