Posted on January 27, 2023 at 6:34 AM
Germany sends tanks to help Ukraine, then suffers a DDoS attack from Russian hackers
The anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is less than a month away, and the conflict does not seem to be any closer to its conclusion. In fact, the war continues, with many different types of battles taking place right now.
One example of this is the Russian attack on Germany’s websites belonging to banks, airports, and even the government. The Russia-backed hacking team known as Killnet conducted a DDoS attack against Germany after Berlin agreed to send its advanced Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine in order to assist the defenders.
The attacks did little damage in Germany
While the attacks were believed to have been conducted in retaliation for Germany’s involvement, the country’s BSI federal agency said that they did very little damage. The attacks only caused small outages here and there, which are relatively simple to recover from.
The BSI admitted that some of the country’s websites are still down as a consequence of the attack, but it stressed that there are no indications of direct effects on the services themselves. The BSI also added that certain targets in the financial sector have also been hit by the self-proclaimed hacktivists. Furthermore, if the usual protective measures are taken, nothing of the sort should be expected moving forward.
This is also not the only major attack that Killnet has conducted in recent months. Last fall, they attacked US airports, also through DDoS attacks. Before that, they had been launching similar attacks ever since the invasion of Ukraine originally started in February 2022.
One example took place in June last year, when the hackers also assumed responsibility for a DDoS attack that targeted the Lithuanian government. This particular attack came after the Baltic country decided to join the blockage and prevent the flow of goods to the region of Kaliningrad in Russia.
Two hacking groups tied to Russian government causing chaos
Meanwhile, a US cybersecurity company called Mandiant also reported at one point that Killnet is associated with Xaknet, which is another group of Russian hacktivists. This team claimed that it was successful in breaching a number of Ukrainian organizations. Mandiant believes that Xaknet likely has a direct connection to Russian Intelligence services.
It is no secret that the Russian government employs hackers and even entire hacking teams who conduct attacks on demand, whether for the purpose of espionage, disruption, financial theft, or otherwise. This makes the Russian government a world leader in hacking and the use of cyber criminals and cyber espionage against foreign governments and industries.
Of course, Moscow never admitted to carrying out any hacking operations, and it denied ties to such groups. Following the attack against Germany, a spokesperson for Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, once again denied Russian involvement in the attack.
In fact, Peskov even denied having knowledge of what Killnet is. He added that the Russian government continues to honestly wonder why any hacking group would choose to associate itself with Russia rather than some other European nation.
Germany finally gives in and sends tanks to Ukraine
As mentioned earlier, Germany announced on Wednesday that it plans to supply Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, thus overcoming misgivings regarding sending heavy weaponry to Kyiv. Ukrainian defenders see such weaponry as crucial to defeat Russians. However, such way of assisting the country comes at a risk, as Moscow might see it as a dangerous provocation, which could lead to expanding the war to other countries.
So far, other countries have managed to find ways to assist Ukraine without openly going against Russia, so the physical battlefield ended up contained to several parts of Ukraine only. However, pressure on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has been building for weeks now, as they were expected to react in some ways and send help in the form of their tanks.
They were also expected to allow NATO allies to make similar moves before the offensive starts again, come spring. The Chancellor’s government managed to stall the procedures, not wanting to aggravate Russia into going to war against the entire NATO, and triggering a new World War.
But, now that Germany sent its tanks to Ukraine, it paved the way for other allies, including Spain, Poland, Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands to supply some of their own Leopard tanks. Ukraine requested hundreds of tanks that could be used against Russian invasion, and while it likely won’t receive that much, the mentioned nations could still supply it with some serious firepower.
