“We need talent, all operational tasks will be assigned online”. Russian activities in the field of energy and finance are targeted. But the counter-offensive is already underway: Facebook reports attacks on military, politicians and journalists 28 Feb 2022 Antonello Salerno
A digital army to fight against Russia also on the cyber front. This is the strategy announced by Mykhailo Fedorov, minister for digital transformation of the Ukrainian government, who used Twitter for this singular "call to arms". “We are creating an IT army - reads Fedorov's post - and we need digital talent. All operational tasks will be assigned online. There will be tasks for everyone. We continue to fight on the cyber front. The first task is on the channel for IT specialists ”. Following this, the Ukrainian minister posted a link to a Telegram chat, where hackers asked to target Russian companies active in the field of finance and energy, including giants such as Gazprom and, in the field of institutes of credit, Sberbank and Vtb. Meanwhile, the signs of the "digital war" between Russia and Ukraine are getting stronger. This is the case, for example, of the alarm launched by Meta, the holding to which Facebook refers, according to which a group of Russian hackers would have used the platform to target a series of Ukrainian public figures, including politicians, journalists and leaders. military of the country. Still on the "digital" front, Google's decision to temporarily disable the Google Maps service in Ukraine, which allows you to monitor traffic on the local road network in real time, or to determine how crowded some public places are, is in the last few hours. This is to prevent the information from being used in the military to plan any targeted attacks. Also against Google, the Russian government has allegedly made a request to limit the ads posted through Google Ads which provide reconstruction that Moscow judges "inaccurate" on the causes of the conflict with Ukraine. This story also demonstrates how Russia would be committed with determination to play a key role in the way the conflict is told online on social media, after the official media in Moscow have been blacked out in many countries on an international scale. In response to Moscow’s pressure on Facebook & Co., the European Union had also taken the field in recent days, with the commissioner of industry Thierry Breton who had asked online platforms to cancel active accounts in the field of war propaganda. A similar request came to Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter also from the heads of government of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, who in a joint letter to the CEOs of the four companies, criticize the giants of the web for not having done enough " to face the Russian government's unprecedented assault on truth ”. On the "Anonymous" front, the cyber attacks by the hacker collective continue, with the latest offensive which allegedly targeted over 300 sites in Russia, including government sites, state media and banks. Among the information portals that were not accessible were those of the "Tass" news agency, "Rbk", the Russian version of the "Forbes" magazine, the newspapers "Kommersant" and "Izvestia". In addition, Anonymous also targeted the sites of a number of Belarusian banks, including Belorussbank, Priorbank and Belinvestbank. Finally, as regards Telegram, the Russian instant messaging platform, it had announced in recent days, through the voice of the founder Pavel Durov, to evaluate the possibility of suspending the use of some channels during the continuation of hostilities with Ukraine.
digital warfare