Russia's assault on Ukraine began on February 24 last year but the military giant has not been able to score a decisive victory on the battlefield over its much smaller neighbour. Thales and Microsoft said Russia's invasion was accompanied by widespread cyberattacks in Ukraine, but they were repelled. "Cyberwarfare didn't deliver the game-changing blow that Russia hoped for," Thales' technical director for cyber defence, Ivan Fontarensky, told AFP, highlighting the resilience of Ukraine's defences.
Both firms said Russia shifted focus to other European countries late last year. "In the third quarter of 2022, Europe was dragged into a high-intensity hybrid cyberwar at a turning point in the conflict," said Pierre-Yves Jolivet, Thales vice president for cyber solutions. - 'Hacktivist' groups - Jolivet said countries outside Ukraine were suffering a "massive wave" of DDoS attacks, when a server is flooded with requests that crash the network. These attacks were increasingly carried out by "hacktivist" groups aligned with the Kremlin rather than official groups, and they aimed to sow chaos rather than destroy infrastructure, Thales said. Poland, Latvia and Sweden were among the most affected countries, the Thales report said.
Microsoft said in its assessment that attacks this year in Europe were largely aimed at government entities for espionage purposes. Highlighting the global reach of Russian actors, the firm said 21 percent of attacks outside Ukraine since the start of the war had hit the United States. While attacks outside Ukraine were often low-level harassment, Microsoft said Russia may well choose more damaging cyber tools in the future. "Should Russia suffer more setbacks on the battlefield, Russian actors may seek to expand their targeting of military and humanitarian supply chains by pursuing destructive attacks beyond Ukraine and Poland," said Microsoft. jxb/lth MICROSOFT THALES / (ANSA-AFP).
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