ITPro Podcast: The changing face of cyber warfare

It’s been over a year since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and for those in the tech sector cyber warfare has defined the conflict. Ukrainian organisations, both public and private, have been subject to attacks including wiper malware, spear phishing, and data breaches.

National cyber security agencies, as well as teams of security experts from throughout the field, remain on high alert for heightened Russian cyber activity. Understanding the strategies of these hackers, as well as their individual motivations, has been key to retaining the integrity of targeted systems.

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Daniel Thanos, head of Arctic Wolf Labs, to discuss the current state-sponsored threat group landscape, and how the terms of the conflict have shifted over time.

Highlights

“Some groups are more closely affiliated to the government than others. And that could be because quite literally you might have members of the group that it’s their moonlighting job, they literally can be folks that are involved in state cyber operations but by night this is like their freelance gig.”

“I think the outcome that the Russians certainly wanted, happened differently. What I will tell you is if you talk to people that I've been involved in the Ukrainian CERT, the folks that are actually involved in the cyber defence of Ukraine, they have thwarted a lot of attacks. And they continue to do so every day.”

“Their intelligence programmes against NATO aren't going to change, they're only going to intensify. Because now as a result of this war, and as a result of their disastrous policies, they're going to get exactly what they didn't want, which is an expansion of NATO. So NATO now is going to become an even bigger threat to them. And so you can be guaranteed that they're going to only increase their cyber operations against it.”

Read the full transcript here.

Footnotes

• Intellias: Disaster recovery during Russia's war on Ukraine
• Microsoft: Russia increasingly timing cyber attacks with missile strikes in Ukraine
• 'CryWiper' trojan disguises as ransomware, says Kaspersky
• The new wave of cyber security threats facing critical national infrastructure (CNI)
• What is cyber warfare?
• Russian cyber attacks on Ukraine: What we know so far
• Microsoft: Russia increasingly timing cyber attacks with missile strikes in Ukraine
• UK's £6m cyber support package for Ukraine revealed for first time
• Critical infrastructure at risk again from Stuxnet-like attack
• Stuxnet is back, Iran admits

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