The War in Ukraine has now entered its 4th month and the devastation has not been limited to conventional warfare, as cyber-attacks from Russian-based entities have had a devastating effect on the economy of Ukraine and have also targeted allies of the embattled nation.
In April of this year, a joint advisory from cybersecurity agencies in Canada, Australia, the US, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, warned of the impending cyber dangers from Russia. Specifically, attacks that may target the allies of Ukraine that have been responsible for levying sanctions to Russia’s economy, and pockets of attacks have already been reported.
The advisory additionally stated that attacks may not only come from state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat Groups (APTs), as several independent cyber groups that sympathize with the Russian position have “recently publicly pledged support for the Russian government,” and that attacks may "occur as a response to the unprecedented economic costs imposed on Russia as well as material support provided by the United States and U.S. allies and partners."
In response to this, Canada’s Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne, lobbied the countries forming the so-called G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union) to initiate a quick reaction group that would share their combined expertise to defend against Russian cyber-attacks targeting crucial Canadian IT infrastructure.
Since the war began, attacks in Ukraine leveraging Hermetic Wiper Malware have wiped away data on computer systems configured for Windows. Should these attacks extend beyond the battlefield and target western nations, they would have devastating consequences.
Champagne asked the meeting of G7 nations, "How can you do more together? What we proposed is a working group to increase our collective resilience."
Just a few weeks earlier, Canada’s Security Intelligence Service warned of the fact that "Canada remains a target for malicious cyber-enabled espionage, sabotage, foreign influence, and terrorism-related activities which pose significant threats to Canada's national security, its interests and its economic stability,” and that "cyber actors conduct malicious activities" for economic, political, military and security reasons against private-sector and government computers.
Mitigating the Russian cyber threat is key, especially as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally issued a crucial ban of Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE from Canadian 5G networks. Canada just became the last member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance to impose a 5G ban against the Chinese entities.
This move may have other consequences for Canada, as prior to the commencement of military action against Ukraine by Russia, there was a new historic cooperative alliance struck between Russia and China.
This new Chinese-Russian alliance poses a major threat to the globe, as the countries have conducted about a decade’s worth of reconnaissance hacking.
Hackers from China have already targeted a US Navy contractor working with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Rhode Island in 2018. That attack occurred just years after NBC News published an NSA map that revealed “more than 600 corporate, private or government ‘Victims of Chinese Cyber Espionage’ attacked over a five-year period, with clusters in America’s industrial centers.”
Russian hackers also carried out perhaps the most wide-ranging example of reconnaissance hacking the world has ever seen, the SolarWinds hack, that affected tens of thousands of entities in both the private and public sectors globally. That attack was the handiwork of Russian APT Cozybear.
It is common knowledge that China and Russia pose the greatest cyber threat to the planet. This was evidenced by major supply chain ransomware attacks like the Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods attacks of 2021. With war continuing to rage on in Ukraine and the serious immediate threat of increased cyber-attacks, it is relieving to see Canada’s government finally getting it right on the key issues of the technological age.
Julio Rivera is a business and political strategist, the Editorial Director for Reactionary Times, and a political commentator and columnist. His writing, which is focused on cybersecurity and politics, has been published by numerous websites and he is regularly seen on National and International news programming.