The conflict in Ukraine proves cyber-attacks are now weapons of war
How cyberattacks have become the weapon of choice for conflicting powers
The pandemic and cyber-attacks
The above hybrid threats are also exacerbated by Ukraine’s (and other countries’) increasing reliance on information systems and the internet for important functions, such as banking, commercial activity, and even healthcare.
Clearly, this transition accelerated during the pandemic and also because oflockdownsforcing citizens to use the internet for work and leisure moreextensively than before.
During the pandemic, cyber-attacks have alsoincreased internationally.
Not just in Ukraine
Other countries in the region are also worried about the tactics spilling over their borders. Latvia has expressed concerns about cybersecurity risks iftensions continue.
The current conflict could also have much wider cybersecurity implications with concerns raised about potential attackson US targetsshould military escalation bring interventions from Ukraine’s western allies against Russia.
After all, it is only a few years since the “NotPetya” cyber-attack against Ukrainian infrastructural systems extended beyond the Ukrainian borders and caused extensive disruption to the information systems of international organizations with significantfinancial impact. And recently, Microsoftsounded the alarmafter its security team discovered destructive covert malware on Ukrainian government systems.
The level of cyber-attacks in Ukraine suggests they are an inevitable part of future political and national conflicts and potentially could have a far-reaching influence on people’s lives.
For example, the impact on the alreadyoverstretched NHS, and consequently to all of us, would be insurmountable if on top of dealing with the pandemic, its systems were hit by some major computer virus, initially developed to destabilize Ukrainian information systems. The chaos generated by the WannaCry ransomwarea few years agowould be unsustainable in the current climate.
The pandemic has accelerated our transition into a more global, hybrid living environment, and with this shift, cyberwarfare causes even more widespread problems than a few years ago. To paraphrase a quote attributed to sci-fi authorWilliam Gibson: “The future is already here and it is becoming even more evenly distributed.” For better or worse.
Article byVasileios Karagiannopoulos, Reader in Cybercrime and Cybersecurity,University of Portsmouth
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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