It is not just boots and missiles that Russia is using to inflict damage in Ukraine, but also bots and malware. The invasion has developed into a first-of-its-kind hybrid war as Russia has stepped up cyberattacks, which it had started as far back as 2014. Now, telecommunications networks in Ukraine have crashed and lights are off in several cities. Victor Zhora, deputy chairman, State Service of Special Communications, Ukraine, spoke exclusively to THE WEEK from Kyiv. He said cyberwarfare was in full swing and added that cooperation was the need of the hour as there is no country that can fight cyberattacks by itself. Excerpts:
Cyberwarfare had begun even before the invasion. How did it play out?
In 2014, during the election campaign in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity, hackers sponsored by Russia attacked the election system. The annexation of Crimea and occupation of parts of the region was supported by a series of cyberattacks.
So, from attacks on the election process, misinformation campaigns, the cyberattack on the power grid in 2015 and the most disruptive cyberattack in June 2017 to a number of other major cyberattacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, there has been continuous cyberaggression against Ukraine. It intensified significantly at the beginning of the year and continued till the largest attack in the middle of February. In our opinion, it was a cyber reconnaissance which preceded the conventional war.
There are reports of submarine cables and satellites being damaged. What is the scale of the damage?
Of course, the latest attacks have caused damage to our information systems. The attacks in the middle of February caused outages in some financial and banking services. Now they are trying to deface websites; websites of local state administrations and media resources have been defaced. These are not as disruptive as we expected. But, the situation is dangerous and we are aware of potential risks. Because we are also witnessing physical attacks on IT infrastructure, which is resulting in disruption of fibre optic cables and broadcast facilities with shelling on our TV towers and missile bombing on IT infrastructure. The focus on disruption of communication and critical infrastructure is rather dangerous.
Why has Russia not been successful in causing major disruption and damage?
Firstly, Russia has been busy protecting itself from attacks on its own infrastructure. So it has been focused on defence, not offence. Secondly, they don't need to hide the attacks on critical infrastructure anymore. They can now attack with missiles or troops. Thirdly, I feel their capacity and potential is limited now. Prior to the war, they had a lot of time and financial resources to prepare cyberattacks and even hire professionals against Ukraine, but now they are not able to organise it quickly.
What kind of support is Ukraine getting from NATO, EU and global intelligence agencies?
We have been getting support for a long time because of a number of cybersecurity projects undertaken by us and we had the opportunity to strengthen it and provide cyber resilience to other countries to raise cyber-workforces. Our resilience today can be explained by the effort taken earlier.
In the current situation, we are constantly getting support from foreign partners, commercial companies and government agencies but we are focusing on handling cyberprotection ourselves because of current conditions; we cannot host any foreign expert at present. Also, these are completely new conditions where cyber and conventional operations have been combined and it is a new experience for the world. Previous plans and scenarios are not applicable. The global community should learn from our experience and develop a new plan for cyberprotection.
What is the strength of Ukraine's cyber army?
The army of cyberwarriors is around half a million (five lakh) and I can divide them into three groups. The first group is a volunteer community which is united into an IT Army. They provide cyber resilience and can provide some offensive operations. But, it is not coordinated by the government. We are concentrating on cyberprotection of Ukraine's infrastructure. The second group consists of dozens of teams of cybersecurity professionals who help government structures to resist cyberaggression. The third is the activist community around the globe that helps Ukraine resist attacks and they are solely responsible for their actions. But in our opinion, any help that can weaken the aggressor is important.
Which sectors have been badly hit in the cyberattacks?
One of the main focuses of the attacks is telecom. They want to destroy communication; telecom infrastructure is being attacked both with technology and physically. The shelling disrupted the internet, but this was quickly and heroically restored by the staff of telecom operators. The attackers are trying to penetrate internal segments of IT systems, but they have been unsuccessful so far. They succeeded in some disinformation messages. The number of attacks is not decreasing. There
is continuous activity from their side, but not so successful.
Why do you think cyberattacks have not spilled outside Ukraine targeting western countries?
During the war, especially cyber warfare, we received intelligence from foreign agencies to get ready and we had started preparing against potential dedicated attacks on some segments of the economy. We saw that they tried to attack the energy sector, government services, financial and telecom infrastructure as well.
But in my opinion, some special measures taken by our government and State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection in building capacity for cyber security, domestic cyber force and cooperation with foreign partners backed by a new state policy on cyber protection resulted in the understanding that we are stronger than previous times.
Do you see the cyber war continuing for long?
We believe they will continue attacking Ukraine as well as other countries. Since they have no limits to using their conventional components, scaling war crimes, shelling residential quarters, maternity hospitals and kindergarten schools, I believe they will use every kind of cyber weapon to attack Ukraine and other countries.
How far is the road to victory for Ukraine?
We will return to our peaceful time. It is more military, but it depends on two factors. How soon the Russian war criminals and leaders of the country understand that this absolutely unbelievable aggression against Ukraine will bring nothing to Russian federation. They should stop attacking civilians and killing our people. Russian citizens should understand that they should stop their leaders because Russia will not stop with Ukraine and can resort to attacking other countries. Secondly, it is up to the unity of nations and all the civilised world to resist and provide adequate response to these aggressive actions of the Russian federation as it can potentially result in World War III with a nuclear component to it. We should stop this immediately.
What is your expectation from the global community, including India?
We have got signals from the Joe Biden administration and global IT providers who are helping us pro bono and offering their help to Ukrainian companies and the government. I believe many global leaders have asked their companies and community to be prepared to counter any aggression.
India is the second largest country in the world with high proficiency in information technology and cybersecurity. We should be united against cyberaggression and war crimes and violation of international agreements. There is no country that can be protected by itself. And Ukraine will appreciate cooperation in the times to come, after our victory, once the aggressor has stopped its aggression.