Malware Attacks Between Russia and Ukraine Sharpened During Peak of Conflict

New data of security firm FireEye reveals more attacks on Russia and Ukraine in recent months which indicate that cyber criminals of both countries might be actively engaged in online campaigns.

FireEye recorded 30 million callbacks during 16-month period but does not know the nature of communications between the malware and the C&C (command and control) servers.

The Security firm defines callbacks as communications from compromised machines to C&C servers which is a good indication of attack.

Infosecurity-magazine.com published a report on 29th May, 2014 quoting Kenneth Geers, Senior Global Threat Analyst of FireEye, as saying "As we track the callbacks during this period, we find a correlation between overall number of callbacks to Russia and Ukraine and the escalation of crisis between two countries."

Actually Russia has risen to number 5 from 7 on the global list for number of callbacks so far this year and Ukraine has jumped to number 9 from 12.

Russia jumped to number three globally in March 2014 when Vladimir Putin, the Honorable President of Russian, signed a bill thereby making Ukraine's Crimean peninsula a fraction of Russia, Russian military forces massed the Ukrainian border and US and EU (European Union) froze the belongings of higher-ranking Russian officials.

FireEye says that the industries most affected are education, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, government, energy and utilities, high-tech, chemical, manufacturing, retail, telecommunications, aerospace, consulting and military services.

Geers' explanation is predominantly likely given both nations history of nationalist web assaults.

That same month, the hacker group of Ukraine Cyber Berkut launched campaigns against NATO and other Russian sites and in early March, National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine said that "massive denial-of-service attack" took down its servers for several hours. In 2007, hackers of Russia launched a DDoS attack which was powerful enough to knock the entire nation of Estonia offline. Since the public tensions between the countries rose, it becomes likely that the same groups might use same tactics to help their side.

The study is still in its introductory stage, but Geers has guaranteed more work on the subject as the security firm scans its networks through dissimilar periods of conflict.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/9/2014