Ukraine hit by DDoS attacks, Russia deploys malware The EU has sent a cyber response team to Ukraine as rumours of a planned Russian invasion reach fever pitch. Meanwhile, IBM's infosec division says the UK was one of the most targeted countries in Europe for cyberattacks last year. The 12-strong Lithuanian-led team – including members from Estonia, the Netherlands, Lithuania, …
If you have one that doesn't, then Russian hackers only need to silently compromise systems in that country to use as a springboard for their real attacks. So even if all NATO members block all Russian IP addresses it won't do anything to prevent potential attacks.
If Ukraine was smart they would have already unplugged all their critical infrastructure from networks. No reason to have power plants and radar stations on the internet right now.
"If you have one that doesn't, then Russian hackers only need to silently compromise systems in that country to use as a springboard for their real attacks."
Absolutely. There's very little difference if traffic goes direct, or if it's routed through any of Russia's neighbours. Nevertheless I would still do it, both symbolically and to make things more difficult for the Russians.
Also keep in mind that many of Russia's neighbours might not be happy with their network infrastructure being compromised by Russian hackers (you can bet your ass that China has its digital defences on full alert), not to mention being a proxy battleground.
Quick look at the map, it just needs 3-4 more countries besides US, EU and China to pull the digital plug to shut Russia out completely.
That of course leaves satellite Internet...
Conversely, keeping the Internet connected means that the average man and woman in those countries can see what's actually going on outside the fairy tale that is being created. Let people make their own minds up rather than trying to do mind control tricks on their own people.
Disconnects would do nothing for the hacking teams, they would just use another way in and still cause havoc.
There is the same problem for China, the sooner that the great firewall becomes ineffective, the better for everyone.
It is surely about time to instigate some high level of blocking to any data traffic coming out of Russia and it's various "outposts" such as in Belarus and in the Donbas regions - this must surely be implemented at the various UK "international hubs", such as LINX.
This might then limit any potential damage to networks within the UK, esp those concerned with providing utility services as well as core emergency services.
Yes, some businesses and news gathering services might be affected....but this only need be temporary, until the Ukraine/Russian "situation" cools down.
Are you for real?
He's invading a NATO ally, he's previously tried to put puppets in western countries, and succeeded in Hungary and Trump in the USA, he came very close to seizing control of US on Jan 6th. If Trump had grabbed dictator power, all US States would be compromised because said leader would not take the necessary action to defend them.
He took out bounties on US troops in Afghanistan. Fox "support our troops" News, flips to "NATO is the aggressor", Putin propagandists.
Do you think for a second, if he gets a US Presidential puppet in power again, that any US state is safe? Alaska in particular, incapable of defending itself, a NATO state next to Russia, a puppet leader and puppet propagandists like Fox there to undermine NATO and pump Putin. President puppet would not defend Alaska. Tucker will claim they are not real Americans, that Putin's interest in its neighbor is legitimate, why should Texans get involved in a State that was originally bought from Russia in the first place?
If Ukraine falls, the Black Sea does, Turkey will flip, Georgia can be taken with ease, and he's heading down to the middle east oil supplies.
....Make his internet a bit slower.... that'll show him!??
Mitts off, you have to smash his army, sink his fleet and drop a bomb on the Kremlin to puncture his safe space.
Otherwise he'll keep attacking, and keep flipping democracies into Putin puppet states.
One does not simply walk into Moscow.
A few people have tried it, and its not always gone well, and that was before we had WMD to add into the fray.
Not saying there is an easy solution, but a hot war between superpowers at that level risks becoming buckets of sunshine hot.
I don't think anyone would win in a full-waged war against Russia, neither Russia nor the other side.
... but the inside out of the Chinese version. Surround all ins and outs with firewalls that effectively cut off all Russian traffic except phone calls. People should still be allowed to phone their relatives, and Putin will need to be able tell someone he's pulling back.
Might as well block off Belaruse at the same time.
Damn! Someone beat me to it.
Some propose to cut Russia from the Net, I would rather suggest the opposite: use the Net to communicate to the Russian people. That won't be easy because of Russian filtering, but it's a great media to try to undo the brainwashing the Russian people gets.
Putin would probably be glad if the rest of the World makes it impossible to Russian citizens to access sources of information he doesn't control already.
Would kicking Russian businesses (and government, of course) off AWS/Azure/GCP/etc. hurt where it counts? It is not exactly shutting down Internet in Russia - personal stuff will still be routed and news will still reach the population (until Mr. Putin shuts it down and maybe Mr. Biden increases funding for Radio Free Europe or something), I agree this is an important factor. Its the business services that will be affected and it just might hurt. And that infrastructure can't be replicated easily, if they can't buy servers it'll be more difficult still.
No, I don't know how much they are dependent on "the cloud", but the thought is entertaining.
>No, I don't know how much they are dependent on "the cloud", but the thought is entertaining.
The big three, about zero except some reliance on Cloudfront and some MS cloud services e.g. Teams. Russian businesses do not trust data to the public cloud and for good reasons, plus local regulations on data residency.
It would hurt unimaginably more if electronic components and integrated circuits produced with the US tech were banned Russia-wide but it would greatly benefit China at the same time.
I'm surprised how limited the effect of Russia's computer assault was. It wasn't really as apocalyptic as feared.
Their more physical forces seem to be struggling a bit as well. When you compare the US invasion of Iraq as being on a similar scale, the Russians have failed to muster any shock and awe.
The bear is starting to look a bit old and knackered.
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