Meds White

Ukrainian soldiers also have to be aware of cybersecurity. It is often thought that cyber war affects large servers and that large companies are affected, but in Ukraine we are seeing precise attacks aimed at foot soldiers. The “Ghostwriter” group, aligned with the Belarusian government, has taken over the accounts of several soldiers, in order to publish false videos and spread hoaxes about the surrender of these soldiers.

In a quarterly report on security threatsFacebook has warned of several detected cases where the accounts of some Ukrainian soldiers had been hacked by this group of Russian cybercriminals.

Phishing as a military action

As if it were an ambush, cyber attackers use Phishing tactics to trick Russian soldiers into gaining access to their personal accounts. In this case, the motivation is to spread disinformation, take advantage of their accounts to publish false videos and discourage the morale of the troops, who trust what their own colleagues say.

As described by Facebook, phishing arrives by email. Once they have access, they use it to gain access to other social networks, where it is often as simple as recovering the password. If ‘Ghostwriter’ is the group spreading disinformation, the Mandiant cybersecurity group, recently bought by Google, Explain what the armed arm that hacks soldiers has the technical name UNC1151.

One of the videos showed some Ukrainian soldiers emerging from a forest and waving a white flag of surrender, as described by Facebook. A video that was detected and blocked by the company, but that represents some of the tactics of the enemies of the Ukrainian army.

To date, these types of attacks were economically motivated, but now we also see it with political motivessince according to Mandiant, the Ghostwriter group aims to destabilize NATO.

Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine