How Russian ‘Info Warrior’ Hackers Let Kremlin Play Geopolitics on the Cheap



[ad_1]

The sprawling SolarWinds hack by suspected Russian state-backed hackers is the latest sign of Moscow’s growing resolve and improved technical capability to cause disruption and conduct global espionage in the world. cyberspace.

The hack, which has compromised parts of the U.S. government as well as tech companies, a hospital and a university, adds to a series of increasingly sophisticated and brazen online intrusions, demonstrating just how cyber operations have become a key part of Russia’s confrontation with the West, analysts and officials say.

Moscow’s relations with the West continue to deteriorate and the Kremlin views cyber operations as a cheap and efficient way to achieve its geopolitical goals, analysts say. Russia is therefore unlikely, they say, to back down in the face of such tactics, even in the face of US sanctions or countermeasures.

“For a country that already perceives itself as being in conflict with the West in virtually every area except open military clashes, there is no incentive to leave any area that may offer an advantage,” he said. said Keir Giles, senior consultant at Chatham House. tank.

The reach of Russia’s cyber operations grew alongside Moscow’s global ambitions: from cyberattacks on neighboring Estonia in 2007 to electoral interference in the United States and France a decade later, to SolarWinds, considered the l one of the worst hacks known to federal computer systems.

[ad_2]

Source link