Ukraine has been more conscious in recruiting a voluntary hacking force. In Telegram channels, participants applaud their cooperation with the government in pursuing targets such as Sberbank, Russia’s state-owned bank. From Russia, where links between the government and hacking groups have long sounded the alarm among Western officials, there has not been the same open call to action.
“We are creating an IT army,” Ukraine’s digital transformation minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted on Saturday, directing cybersecurity enthusiasts to a Telegram channel with instructions on how to take Russian websites offline. “There will be tasks for everyone.” On Friday, the Telegram channel had more than 285,000 subscribers.
The main English-language Telegram page for Ukraine’s IT military has a 14-page introductory document detailing how people can participate, including what software to download to mask their whereabouts and identities. New targets are added every day, including websites, telecom companies, banks and ATMs.
Yegor Aushev, the co-founder of Ukrainian cybersecurity firm Cyber Unit Technologies, said he was inundated with notes after posting a call on social media for programmers to get involved. His company offered a $100,000 reward to those who identify flaws in the code of Russian cyber targets.
Mr Aushev said more than 1,000 people were involved in his efforts, working closely with the government. People were only allowed to participate if someone vouched for them. Organized in small groups, they were aimed at hitting high-impact targets such as infrastructure and logistics systems important to the Russian military.
“It has become an independent machine, a distributed international digital army,” said Mr. aushev. “The biggest hacks against Russia will happen soon,” he added, without elaborating.
A government spokesman confirmed the work with Mr Aushev.
It is always difficult to find out who is behind a cyber attack. Groups wrongly take credit or boast of a greater impact than actually happened. But this week there was a series of attacks on Russian targets. The country’s largest exchange, a state-controlled bank and the Russian Foreign Ministry were taken offline for a while after being targeted by Ukrainian volunteer hackers.
