Russia plans “massive cyberattacks” on critical infrastructure, Ukraine warns

The Ukrainian government on Monday warned that the Kremlin is planning to carry out “massive cyberattacks” targeting power grids and other critical infrastructure in Ukraine and in the territories of its allies.

“By the cyberattacks, the enemy will try to increase the effect of missile strikes on electricity supply facilities, primarily in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine,” an advisory warned. “The occupying command is convinced that this will slow down the offensive operations of the Ukrainian Defence Forces.” Monday’s advisory alluded to two cyberattacks the Russian government carried out—first in 2015 and then almost exactly one year later—that deliberately left Ukrainians without power during one of the coldest months of the year. The attacks were seen as a proof-of-concept and test ground of sorts for disrupting Ukraine’s power supply.

The first attack repurposed a known piece of malware, called BlackEnergy, created by Kremlin-backed hackers. The attackers used this new BlackEnergy3 malware to break into the corporate networks of Ukrainian power companies and then further encroach into the supervisory control and data acquisition systems the companies used to generate and transmit electricity. The hack allowed the attackers to use legitimate functionality commonly found in power distribution and transmission to trigger a failure that caused more than 225,000 people to go without power for more than six hours.