Russia intensifies its cyber attack on Ukraine, military invasionBoth sides of the Atlantic worry that the situation will spread to other countries and become a cyber-war.

Russia has been implicated in a variety of human rights violations. cyber attacksMoscow denied that Moscow was involved in the recent attacks on Ukraine’s banking and government systems.

ESET, a cybersecurity company, announced Thursday that it discovered “wiper malware” targeting Ukrainian companies. This software is designed to wipe data from systems it targets.

A distributed denial attack (DDoS) was used to knock offline the websites of various Ukrainian departments and banks. This is where hackers overload a website until it crashes.

You will get it after. a separate attack last weekU.S., U.K. officials took down four websites belonging to the Ukrainian government. attributed GRU is the Russian military intelligence agency.

Also, it was reported that Ukrainians received text messages claiming ATMs did not work in their country. This scare tactic is likely to be cybersecurity experts’ belief.

The onslaught of attacks has led to fears of a wider digital conflict, with Western governments bracing for cyber threats from Russia — and considering how to respond.

British and American officials are warning businesses to be alert to suspicious activity from Russia on their networks. Meanwhile, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on Thursday said European nations should be “aware of the cybersecurity situation in their countries.”

NBC News reportedThursday’s presentation to President Joe Biden included options for the U.S. that could be used to attack Russia via cyberattacks to cut off internet connectivity. However, a White House spokesperson said the report was not accurate.

Nevertheless, cybersecurity researchers say an online conflict between Russia and the West is indeed a possibility — though the severity of any such event may be limited.

John Hultquist from Mandiant’s vice president for intelligence analysis, stated to CNBC that “I believe it’s possible” but added, “It’s also very important that we reflect upon the reality of cyber warfare.”

It’s very easy to use that phrase and to compare it with real war. The reality is that most cyber attacks have been nonviolent and easily reversible.

Symantec researchers discovered that wiper malware found in Ukraine had also been detected in Latvian and Lithuanian government contractors. It suggests that there may be a “hidden” threat.spillover“Russian cyber-warfare tactics are being used in other countries.

Lewis explained that “this likely indicates the beginning of the corollary impact of cyber-conflicts on global supply chain systems, and it may start to have an effect on other Western countries which depend on certain contractors and service suppliers.”

A number of European Union member countries including Poland, Lithuania and Croatia offer support to Ukraine for the creation of a cyber-responseteam.

Hitesh Sheth CEO at Vectra AI said that “we have long believed cyber attacks will be part of every nation’s arsenal” and added, “I think what we’re seeing for the very first time honestly in human history is that cyber attacks have become weapon of first strike.”

Sheth indicated that Russia could use cyber attacks to retaliate against Sheth. Western sanctionsThis was announced this week.

“I fully anticipate that given the Russian overtly attacking Ukraine using cyber attacks,” he stated.

NotPetya, a notorious malware that infected thousands of computers around the globe in 2017, was a major threat. It was originally targeted at Ukrainian organisations, but quickly spread to other countries and impacted major corporations like Maersk, WPPAnd Merck. These attacks, which caused more than $10 billion of total damage, were initially blamed on Sandworm (the hacking unit at GRU).

Hultquist stated to CNBC that if they focus this type of activity on the West, it could have extremely real economic consequences.

“The second piece we are concerned about is their pursuit of critical infrastructure.”

Hultquist claimed that Russia was digging into infrastructure in Western countries, such as the U.S. and U.K. for “a very long period” and had been repeatedly “caught in he act.”

Hultquist said, “The problem, however, is that we have never seen them pull off the trigger.” The thinking was that they had been preparing for the worst.

Now the question is: is this the type of contingency they had been anticipating? Are they at the point where disruptions can be started? This is something we are concerned about.

Colonial Pipeline was a U.S.-based oil pipeline company that was targeted by ransomware in a ransomware attack last year. The attack caused critical infrastructure to be offline. While the Biden administration denies that Russia was involved in the ransomware attack, DarkSide (the hacker group responsible) was believed to be located in Russia.