Russian hackers targeting Western critical infrastructure, UK says
BELFAST听–听The听鲍碍听government’s cyber defense agency warned on Wednesday of an emerging threat to听奥别蝉迟别谤苍听肠谤颈迟颈肠补濒听national听颈苍蹿谤补蝉迟谤耻肠迟耻谤别听posed by听丑补肠办别谤蝉听sympathetic to Russia and its war on听鲍办raine.
Russia-aligned “hacktivists” have carried out largely harmless online campaigns that have defaced prominent public websites or knocked them offline. However, some of those groups have been actively plotting ways to do more real-world damage, Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of the GCHQ eavesdropping intelligence agency, said in an alert.
“Some have stated a desire to achieve a more disruptive and destructive impact against听飞别蝉迟别谤苍听肠谤颈迟颈肠补濒听national听颈苍蹿谤补蝉迟谤耻肠迟耻谤别, including in the听鲍碍,” the NCSC said.
“We expect these groups to look for opportunities to create such an impact, particularly if systems are poorly protected,” said the alert, which was released to press at a two-day conference hosted by the NCSC and GCHQ in Belfast.
Although such groups are ideologically-motivated and align themselves with听搁耻蝉蝉颈补苍听state interests, they are “not subject to formal state control,” the alert said.
“This makes them less predictable”, it said.
A successful cyberattack on聽肠谤颈迟颈肠补濒听national听颈苍蹿谤补蝉迟谤耻肠迟耻谤别听such as an energy grid or water supply could be highly destructive, and do serious real-world damage.
The NCSC alert said such attacks, which typically require very high levels of technical skill and resources to carry out, would be “unlikely” to be achieved by hacktivist groups “without external assistance”, but warned that they “may become more effective over time”.
That assistance may already be in place, however.
Among the dozens of聽聽which were posted online in recent weeks was one marked “Top Secret” that warned a pro-Russia hacking group named “Zarya” had infiltrated networks within Canada’s gas听颈苍蹿谤补蝉迟谤耻肠迟耻谤别.
According to that “Top Secret” document, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, the group offered screenshots to officers of Russia’s FSB as proof that they were able to “increase valve pressure, disable alarms, and initiate an emergency shutdown of an unspecified gas distribution station”.
Reuters has not independently verified the documents’ authenticity. A number of countries have聽 of some of the documents, including Britain, which said there was “a serious level of inaccuracy” in the information. – Reuters
