Ukraine: US and EU ready to respond to hacker attacks

Any sanctions or retaliation are under consideration if Moscow should act. Defense ministry and two banks in Kiev. But the Kremlin denies: "Nothing to do with these episodes"

16 Feb 2022 F. Me.

The United States and its allies are ready to respond to Russian cyber attacks in the Ukraine case, with retaliation or sanctions. US and European officials announced this to Reuters. US President Joe Biden, speaking hours after Ukraine reported an attack on the Defense Ministry and two banks, told reporters that Washington was coordinating closely with NATO allies and other partners to expand defenses against threats in cyberspace. The attacks, believed by Western Russian security experts, were not unexpected, officials said. "The president said we will respond to Russian actions unless there is a military invasion," said a US official. "But what is decided depends on the extent of the cyber attacks. There are so many types that it is difficult to go into details ”. A European diplomat said cyber-attacks were a long-standing component of Russian strategy and had been used by Moscow in previous military clashes with Georgia and Ukraine. But, according to sources, while US, European and Canadian officials have worked out a detailed package of sanctions if Russian forces invade Ukraine, there is no such detailed plan on how to respond to cyber attacks. This is partly due to the fact that it can take time to identify who is responsible, especially in the case of Distributed Denial of Service (Ddos) attacks. The response could involve actions other than sanctions, including physical or cyber attacks on the servers involved, said one IT expert familiar with Western planning. The attack on Ukraine The government of Kiev has announced that the sites of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and those of two public banks are under cyber attack. The media and available information suggest that this is yet another Ddos attack. The attack is part of the already extremely tense situation in Ukraine. At the moment, the perpetrators have not yet been identified.

"We must pay close attention in this delicate phase, before openly accusing someone - says Justin Fier, Director of Cyber Intelligence & Analytics at Darktrace - Attributing responsibility in the cyber field, in fact, is a very dangerous game, and any calculation error can be detected. harmful. This attack could have been launched, for example, by someone who wants to take advantage of the already extremely tense situation in Ukraine ”. "The media and information available suggest that this is yet another distributed denial of service (DdoS) attack, an attempt to obscure websites or networks by overwhelming web servers with high volumes of traffic - he continues - These attacks, not particularly sophisticated , are relatively easy to mitigate but cybercriminals know full well that such an incident will make headlines, sparking a global controversy without doing enough damage to provoke a cyber counter-attack reaction. " The Kremlin claims it has nothing to do with the cyber attacks in Ukraine. “As expected, Ukraine continues to blame Russia for everything. Russia has nothing to do with cyber attacks, ”Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Nations that are violated on a daily basis now magically say they are capable of counterattacks. They look like Reagan's star wars. Winning with a bluff .. Begin to evaluate our products for the defense of sensitive targets. And if they are based on outdated opinions, such as the validity of public key and private key cryptography, I conclude with an Italian proverb: whoever is the cause of his ache weep for himself.

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