Russia : Russian government hackers carried out multiple cyber operations against Ukraine that appeared to support Moscow’s military attacks and online propaganda campaigns, Microsoft said in a report on Wednesday.
The reported intrusions – some of which have not been previously disclosed – suggest that hacking has played a bigger role in the conflict than what has been publicly known.
The digital onslaught, which Microsoft said began one year prior to Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, may have laid the groundwork for different military missions in the war-torn territory, researchers found.
Between Feb. 23 and April 8, Microsoft said, it observed a total of 37 Russian destructive cyberattacks inside Ukraine.
Microsoft said Russia’s hacking and military operations worked in “tandem against a shared target set.” The tech company said it could not determine whether this correlation was driven by coordinated decision-making or simply because of shared goals.
Two weeks ago the U.S. government publicly exposed a cyberweapon, known as Pipedream, that was designed to damage industrial control systems. While the tool hasn’t been attributed to Russia, it is viewed as highly dangerous and its discovery coincides with the Ukraine conflict.
