The Cyber Winter of Discontent

Author: Roman Faithfull

Western Critical National Infrastructure to be at the core of Russia’s Winter Cyber Offensive

The report which analyses the conflict in Ukraine makes predictions as to how Russia may conduct cyber military activity over winter this year.

It finds that Russia is facing a crisis of resources and manpower and with Ukraine receiving a steady supply of defensive weapons and technology from the West, Russia may struggle to effectively deploy malware against its critical national infrastructure (CNI) at scale. As such, analysts at Cyjax believe that Russia may turn its attention to more cost-effective tactics outside of the region in an effort to disrupt supply chains and deter the West from supplying its ally.

Analysts at Cyjax have made multiple predictions on how the country will strategise over the cold months:

• Russia will likely choose to keep some cyberattack resources in reserve rather than exhausting them all during this war, to ensure that they retain offensive and defensive capabilities should they be invaded themselves.
• Hacktivism will be a core component of Russia’s campaign, due to its low operational cost and the level of plausible deniability.
• Cyjax has observed a number of hacktivist groups increasing in activity namely: UserSec, SiegedSec, NoName057, AnonymousSudan, AnonymousRussia, and Killnet.
• In an effort to disrupt military supply chains in 2024, Russia will continue to target the CNI of Ukraine’s allies; it is likely cyber defences outside of Ukraine have remained comparatively weak as they have not been so heavily targeted in comparison to those of Ukraine.
• In recent months, Cyjax has observed many pro-Kremlin hacktivist collectives switching their targeting away from Ukraine to attacks on organisations based in Israel and those countries supporting it.