Ukrainian cyber experts have conducted a major cyber operation targeting Russia’s energy sector, impacting 23 Russian companies, UkrInform reports, citing a source in Ukraine’s intelligence agency (HUR).
Since 2022, Ukraine’s HUR has actively engaged in cyber operations against Russia, conducting over a hundred large-scale attacks. These operations target a range of Russian entities, from government websites to critical infrastructure, including a nuclear weapons development enterprise.
The source said Russian losses may total several billion rubles. According to them, the operation took place on 7-8 February and targeted Gazprom’s primary contractor, Gazstroyprom, and its subsidiaries involved in the construction and maintenance of Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure. In total, 23 companies were affected.
The attack was made possible through the cooperation of an executive from the holding company, who granted Ukraine’s defense forces access to key servers, exploiting vulnerabilities in Russia’s cybersecurity systems.
As a result of the operation, more than 120 servers hosting over 1,500 virtual machines were disabled, file storage containing over 2 million GB of documentation was destroyed, over 10,000 employee computers were disabled, and all systems and services were shut down.
The source indicated that this is not the last large-scale target to be successfully neutralized in cyberspace, and the cyber war would continue to escalate, causing significant harm to Russia.
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