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Showing posts with label Kyiv. Show all posts
surveillance
DTEK Kyiv Privacy Russia-Ukraine War Russian intelligence Security Service of Ukraine(SBU) surveillance

Russia Hacks Surveillance Cameras to Monitor Attacks in Kyiv


During Tuesday's intense missile and drone strikes on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, which left over 250,000 people without internet or electricity amid dropping winter temperatures, Russian military intelligence broke into surveillance cameras to spy on Ukrainian air defenses and Kyiv's vital infrastructure.

Security Service of Ukraine informed that it responded to the hack by blocking and dismantling the suspected camera. 

The agency further advised online users to cease transmitting and watching security camera feeds online, as Russian military intelligence is utilizing the "collected data for preparing and adjusting strikes on Kyiv."

Russia has been attacking Kyiv and Kharkiv since New Year’s holiday weekend, resulting in five casualties and over 130 injured. On Tuesday, around 100 missiles were fired on the two cities. 

These attacks were monitored by the Russian intelligence by hacking into the online surveillance cameras that are privately-owned. "According to SBU cyber specialists, one of the devices was located on the balcony of an apartment building and was used by a local condominium to monitor the surrounding area," the SBU reported.

Hackers secretly recorded all visual data inside the surveillance camera's viewing range by gaining remote access to the device and altering its viewing angle. According to the SBU, Russian intelligence then viewed the feed on YouTube to assist the military in tracking the airstrikes and informing soldiers about their targets.

The hacked surveillance camera used for monitoring the parking lot of other residential complex in Kyiv helped hackers to surveille the surrounding areas, which comprised vital infrastructure facilities.

Internet and Power Supply Affected

The energy company DTEK said that Russian missiles had damaged power grid equipment and overhead lines in Kyiv and the surrounding region, causing blackouts that affected nearly 260,000 Kyiv residents. Russian missiles, drones, and bombers also struck Ukrainian internet and power supply services.

DTEK tweeted, "Critical infrastructure, industrial, civilian and military facilities were attacked. The main focus of the attack was the capital of Ukraine[…]DTEK's power engineers are quickly restoring power after the attack."

As of Wednesday, DTEK Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk announced that all 260,000 residents in Kyiv and an additional 185,000 residents in the surrounding districts had their power restored. "We are now continuing to repair networks after yesterday's shelling, because some consumers had to be connected via backup circuits."  

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Threat Landscape
Cyber Security Kyiv Russia-Ukraine War Russian Navy Starlink Threat Landscape

Elon Musk Claims he Withheld Starlink to Deny Attack on Russian Navy Fleet

 

Elon Musk claimed that he turned down a proposal from the Ukrainian government to turn on his Starlink satellite network near Sevastopol, the port city of Crimea, last year in order to support an assault on the Russian navy there, citing his concern over being implicated in a "major" act of war. 

The billionaire businessman made the comment on his social media platform X after CNN highlighted an excerpt from a recent biography of Musk that claims he ordered the Starlink network turn off near the Crimean coast last year in order to thwart the Ukrainian covert operation. 

Musk wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had to turn down a last-minute request from Ukraine "to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol." Both he and the excerpt omitted to include the request's date.

"The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor," Musk states. "If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation." 

Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia, which seized the strategically vital Crimea peninsula in 2014, has used the Black Sea Fleet, which is based in Sevastopol, to blockade Ukrainian ports. The Russian fleet launches cruise missiles against Ukrainian civilian sites, and Kiev has carried out marine drone attacks on Russian vessels. 

According to CNN, the latest biography of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, "Elon Musk," which will be published by Simon & Schuster next week, claims that when Ukrainian submarine drones carrying explosives last year approached the Russian fleet, they "lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly." 

It said Musk's decision, which left Ukrainian authorities pleading with him to activate the satellites, was motivated by a fear that Russia might respond to a Ukrainian invasion with nuclear weapons.

Musk's fears of a "mini-Pearl Harbour" were based on contacts with senior Russian officials and his fears of a "mini-Pearl Harbour." 

The first time the Ukrainian navy has extended its reach thus far from its borders was in August when a Ukrainian naval drone attacked the Russian Black Sea navy station in Novorossiysk, gravely damaging a Russian cruiser. 

Since the start of the war in 2022, SpaceX has been providing Ukrainians and the country's military with Starlink internet service, a rapidly increasing network of over 4,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, through private donations and a separate contract with a U.S. foreign aid agency. In June, the Pentagon announced that SpaceX's Starlink had been awarded a Department of Defence contract to purchase satellite services for Ukraine. 

Commenting on the reports on Ukrainian national television, Vadym Skybytskyi, an officer in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry's Intelligence Directorate GUR, did not explicitly address whether Musk had denied Ukraine's request. But he added it was vital to investigate and "appoint a specific group to examine what happened."
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United States
Cyber Crime France Hacker Hackers Arrested Kyiv Ukraine United States

25-Yr Old Hacker Detained by Ukraine Police

 

Following a collaborative international law enforcement investigation, two ransomware syndicates were apprehended in Ukraine. On Sept. 28, police investigators from Ukraine, the United States, and France arrested a 25-year-old hacker in Kyiv to put an end to a large cybercrime incident that cost more than $150 million worldwide. 

According to authorities, the suspect allegedly sought a ransom in turn of the victims' stolen information as of Oct. 4. The hacker is thought to have obtained this information by sending malware-infected phishing emails to workers of the organizations he targeted. 

As per the authorities, the cybercriminal, who hadn't been recognized, attacked over 100 enterprises in Europe and the United States, including world-famous energy and tourism companies. Europol noted that the hacker had a co-conspirator who assisted him in withdrawing funds from victims. 

Law enforcement investigators discovered and seized $375,000 in cash, two luxury automobiles, computers, and smartphones in the suspect's Scandinavian-styled Kyiv flat. 

Since virtual transactions are difficult to track, hackers frequently demand ransom in cryptocurrencies. Following inspections of the criminal's flat, authorities discovered that the Ukrainian cyber-criminal had over $1.3 million in cryptocurrencies in his possession. According to the authorities, he might face up to twelve years behind bars for breaching cybercrime and money laundering rules. 

"As a result, computer equipment, mobile phones, vehicles, and more than 360 thousand dollars in cash were seized. In addition, $1.3 million was blocked on the attacker's cryptocurrencies," the police said. 

Hackers from Ukraine and Russia rarely attack systems and networks in their nations, instead preferring to infect computers in Western Europe and the United States. Ukrainian cybercriminals are typically young, between the ages of 15 and 30, with no criminal history as well as a strong command of computer technology and mathematics. Their monthly income starts at $5,000, which is significantly higher than the $2,000 that tech experts in Ukraine might earn. 

Authorities all across the world are attempting to reverse the trend of ransomware assaults, which have become a lucrative business in recent years. Hackers, who are mostly from Eastern Europe, attack international companies, universities, government agencies, and even crucial infrastructures such as hospitals and gas stations.
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Ukraine
Cyber Attacks DDoS Kyiv Russia Ukraine

Russia Accused by Ukraine for Major Cyber Attacks

 

Ukraine on Monday alleged major attacks against the Ukrainian security and defense website by unidentified Russian Internet networks but did not provide specifics of any losses or mention who it felt was responsible for the attack. Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, previously described Moscow with major cyberattacks against Ukraine as part of the "hybrid war," which Russia opposes. 

“Kyiv has previously accused Moscow of orchestrating large cyber attacks as part of a “hybrid war” against Ukraine, which Russia denies. However, a statement from Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council did not disclose who it believed organized the attacks or give any details about the effect the intrusions may have had on Ukrainian cybersecurity.” reported The Reuters agency. 

The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council however has not released a statement that states that the Ukrainian Cyber Security is believed to coordinated or provides specifics about the consequences that intruders may have had. According to a contact, the attacks began on Feb. 18 and threatened web pages belonging to Ukrainian Security Service, the Council itself, and several other state agencies and strategic businesses. 

“It was revealed that addresses belonging to certain Russian traffic networks were the source of these coordinated attacks,” the Council said. 

“The council added the attacks attempted to infect vulnerable government web servers with a virus that covertly made them part of a botnet used for so-called distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on other resources,” concludes Reuters. 

The Council reported that these attacks are intended to infect compromised state web servers with malware that has transformed them into part of a DDoS network. A DDoS attack is a cyber attack in which hackers aim to inundate a network with an extraordinary amount of information traffic so as to paralyze it. 

"It is obvious that it's connected with the latest pro-active efforts by the Service toward protecting national interests and countering Russia, which has been waging its hybrid war against Ukraine, including in the information domain," the official reported. Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and participated in a continuing war in the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine have been at the loggerhead.
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