Russian Criminal Hacker Groups Intensify DDoS Attacks Against Ukrainians and Other Nations

by Dan Goodin

08 Jun 2022

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They are targeting many countries after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. DDoSing by Russian digital specialists is a threat to government and commercial projects regardless of boundaries and cordons. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency published a report about Russian state-sponsored criminal cyber groups.

The Russian Cyber Attacks Against Ukrainians

According to NetBlocks, the vastest attacks were interrupting the work of enterprises in big centers like Kyiv, Luhansk, and Mariupol. Both local and national (Ukrtelecom; Ukr. Укртелеком) Internet providers suffered from connectivity drops and interruptions. In March, Ukrtelecom reported a 13% connectivity drop. Still, connectivity drops reached up to 20% in some areas.

Kaspersky’s report shows a 450% increase in DDoSing if we contrast the 2021 and 2022 periods. Another significant detail is the time duration. Russian hacktivist activity time in 2022 became 8000% higher than the same in 2021. But also, Kaspersky stated a decrease in such activity after emotional reaction calmed down.

DDoSing was a planned campaign as a part of the cyber war between Ukraine and the aggressor. On June 5, 2022, Russia admitted that it is starting to lose the information war (in general), ZN.ua reports. Overall, many analysts sum up that Russia has failed in informational attacks. Yet, that does not stop hacktivists from continuing occasional attacks, including massive DDoS ones.

What Other Nations Face Russian Digital Aggression

One of the most well-known Russian hacktivist groups is Killnet. According to ITPro, the Killnet group declared digital war on 10 countries after failing to interrupt Eurovision. The nations that fixed information about Russian digital attacks before that were:

The UK;
Italy;
Romania;
The United States.

The list of countries Killnet is attempting to threaten is:

The US;
The UK;
Germany;
Italy;
Latvia;
Romania;
Lithuania;
Estonia;
Poland;
and Ukraine.

Also, Cloudflare reports blocking 15M rps HTTPS DDoS attack on a crypto launchpad. And the hacktivist groups from the Russian Federation continue interrupting the telecommunications and services industries of other nations.

The Potential Concern Extent

DDoS attacks cause temporary inconveniences rather than catastrophes that destroy businesses. Nevertheless, DDoS attacks against Ukraine might lead not only to business problems but to life threats too. For instance, cutting war survivors from their Internet providers prevents them from communicating with other people under occupation. In moments of persecution, that might lead to civilian tragedies. DDoS attacks might be a costly but resolvable issue for other nations. Yet, constant problems like that can lead to losing a significant percentage of one’s business, which has happened to Columbia Wireless.