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Cyber attacks targeting Ukraine during the Russo-Ukraine war are now shifting focus on NATO countries, according to Check Point Research.
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As the Russia-Ukraine war marks its first anniversary, the cyber security company compared cyber attacks recorded in relation to Ukraine, Russia, and NATO from March to September last year, and from October last year until February this year.
The company has stated that September last year is a significant turning point when weekly cyber attacks against Ukraine decreased by 44 per cent (from 1,555 to 877).
The change indicated there were more attacks against NATO countries such as Estonia (57 per cent increase), Poland (31 per cent increase) and Denmark (31 per cent increase).
Russia saw a modest rise in cyber attacks of 9 per cent (from 1,505 to 1,635), US-recorded attacks rose 6 per cent, and the United Kingdom rose by 11 per cent.
Check Point Research threat intelligence group manager Sergey Shykevich said there has been a shift in cyber attacks around the war to switch the focus from Ukraine, to the NATO countries that support Ukraine.
“We see a change in the direction of cyber attacks at a specific point during the war,” he said.
“Starting the third quarter of 2022, we see a decline in the attacks against Ukraine, while also seeing increases in the attacks against certain NATO countries.
“We see the deployed efforts especially against specific NATO countries that are more hostile to Russia.
“Some of those attacks are malware attacks, and some of those are focused on information operations around specific political, geopolitical, and military events.”
Wiper malware (which erases information and programs from infected systems), multi-pronged attacks, and hacktivism are all emerging more heavily as new cyber trends following the September 2022 turning point, according to Check Point.
At least nine different wipers were deployed in Ukraine in less than a year. These include wiper malware such as HermeticWiper, HermeticWizard, and HermeticRansom deployed against Ukraine on the eve of the ground invasion in February 2022 and Industroyer malware directed at the Ukrainian power grid in April.
The country has also seen multi-pronged cyber actions intended to cause general damage and disrupt civilian morale. A Viasat attack was deployed hours before the ground invasion of Ukraine to interfere with military and civilian satellite communications, while an attack using the AcidRain wiper was tailored to destroy modems, routers, and cut internet access for tens of thousands of systems.
Check Point Research has noted this as the first major hybrid war that involves cyberspace as a battlefront alongside major kinetic war fronts and that the borders between nation-state activity, hacktivism, and cyber crime are becoming more blurred and harder to distinguish.
