Russia is preparing for the First World Cyber War: Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Cyber Security Department spoke about a new level of threat.

The cyber war with Russia continues to gain momentum. Over the past two years, the number of cyberattacks has exceeded 4 thousand, which is five times more than in 2020. These attacks are of a different nature: from major strikes on civilian infrastructure, as happened with Kyivstar, to constant attempts to penetrate the communication systems of the Ministry of Defense and other critical infrastructure of the country.

He said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

RUSSIA IS PREPARING FOR THE FIRST WORLD CYBER WAR

- Mr. Ilya, in one of your interviews you said that we have the first cyber war going on. In this case, who are its allies and who are its opponents? Of course, apart from Russia, everything is clear here...

- Allies are our international partners who support Ukraine. The main partners are the United States and the United Kingdom. But there are other countries with serious expertise in the cyber direction, for example, the Netherlands. We also actively cooperate with the Baltic States and Sweden.

As for Russia, today there is no special service on its side, except for the Belarusian one. The Belarusians have a hacker group called "Ghostwriter", which we have repeatedly recorded. But they are no more than one percent of the total number of attacks. We have repeatedly repelled them and understand what kind of infrastructure they use.

At the end of 2022, the special services of Belarus sent their hackers for an internship in Russia. They had joint exercises and trainings, but the weight of Belarusians in the cyber war is insignificant.

- Mr. Ilya, what is the general picture of Russian cyberattacks?

- Cyber warfare is gaining momentum. Let me remind you that in 2015-2016 we had the first destructive attacks on energy facilities. Then there was the NotPetya virus, constant DDoS attacks, and infiltration attempts. The SBU repelled all this and constantly analyzed it.

For example, in 2020, we blocked 800 cyberattacks, in 2021 – 1400, and after the start of a full-scale war – there were already 4500 of them every year.

However, sometimes it is not quantity that matters, but quality, and the enemy is working on this.

But the Security Service of Ukraine stopped many dangerous attempts to penetrate the communication systems of our Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense.