Microsoft’s Digital Security Unit has confirmed that Russian cyber attacks on Ukraine were timed in such a way that they coincided with the timing of military strikes. The American technology giant stated the attacks were timed just before military attacks to either weaken the target digitally or to double strike it in such a way that it never recovers from the assault.
A report released by the Digital Security Unit owned by the Windows giant states the two major attacks hitting a television broadcaster and a nuclear power plant in the first week of March were crafted to down the morale of the Ukraine, President Zelensky and his Ministers.
The plan was to strike the region’s critical infrastructure and the military strength both at a time.
It was a pre-planned war as the digital attacks emerged in early 2021 and were launched by Nobelium and Strontium group to access the digital strength of government and private companies serving the critical infrastructure.
After the war started on February 24th, 2022, Kremlin involved two other groups in cyber attack campaigns. First, it was the Iridium group that was assigned spreading disinformation by stealing info from government networks and leaking their projects to the world. Second, it was Bromine, whose primary duty was to infiltrate nuclear facilities of Ukraine and take control of servers, thereafter customizing them to run on the commands of Vladimir Putin.
Microsoft recommends companies to install endpoint detection and response solutions having potential to identify and remediate intrusions having malicious intent.
