By Sarosh Bana.
As the world watches Russian forces smother the 41 million Ukrainians, one option before the US and its NATO allies, who have expressed themselves against any military intervention, is a concerted cyber counterattack that can cripple Moscow’s mighty war machine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s indefensible assault on a sovereign country is triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, as Europe witnesses its fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. More than 2.6 million Ukrainians have fled their country since the Russian invasion began on 24 February, and over a million others have been internally displaced. The Russian autocrat has also threatened to use nuclear force, but while his warning is believed to be out of frustration on the war not going as planned, he has indisputably upped the nuclear ante with air raids on Ukraine’s nuclear power sites.
Now, the White House warns, “[W]e should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false-flag operation using them.”
An NBC News report, citing “four sources familiar with the matter”, mentions that US President Joe Biden has been presented with options for “massive cyber-attacks” aimed at disrupting Moscow’s military efforts. Though dismissed by a White House spokesperson, the report itself clarifies that the US and most other countries would never publicly acknowledge cyber-attacks on their part, which would be undertaken covertly by them, if and when executed.
Equally, while many major economies have invested substantially towards creating national cyber defences, the charters will not speak of any potential for cyber offensives. While NATO cites cyber defence as part of its core task of collective defence, with cyber threats to the security of the Alliance becoming “more frequent, complex, destructive and coercive”, the United States Cyber Command – an armed forces Unified Combatant Command – centralises command of cyberspace operations, organises existing cyber resources and synchronises defence of US military networks. An International Institute for Strategic Studies report last year placed the US as the world’s foremost cyber superpower, taking into account its “cyber offence, defence, and intelligence capabilities”.
To undercut Russia’s military, concerted cyber-attacks on critical infrastructures such as logistics, transportation, communications, information networks, and energy can seriously undermine its military mission success, without causing untold collateral damage. An all-out effort can also subvert Moscow’s potential of retaliation by disabling further infrastructures that can support the conduct of military and cyber operations.
Russia, as also China, are often the prime suspects for blockbuster attacks, though opinion is divided on which is more threatening. Both countries are believed to specialise in cyber-warfare, that is, the use of cyber-attacks against a nation-state. Their attacks on overseas businesses have purloined billions of dollars, and exposed the frailties of major financial and commercial systems.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service has allegedly been behind many such hacks that help in corporate espionage as also in harvesting data and information concerning politicians and policymakers. Kremlin-backed hackers have been suspected of attempting subversion of American elections, and there were reports that the Russian intelligence agency had in 2020 compromised software used by US intelligence agencies and nuclear labs, and even by the Pentagon, State Department, Department of Homeland Security and Fortune 500 companies. The attack was detected only a year later.
Hackers linked to China are seen to have targeted at least six US states through information-gathering operations that have persisted over the last 10 months, says Virginia-headquartered cyber-security firm Mandiant. The state agencies targeted include “health, transportation, labour (including unemployment benefit systems), higher education, agriculture, and court networks and systems”.
Russia and China recently signed an extensive cyber-security agreement that has serious connotations for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and may signal an even further worsening of these two world powers’ relations with the Western democracies. Both have agreed not to hack each other, and this could well presage jointly-conducted cyber-attacks that target Western powers for strategic purposes.
The US-led NATO may be wary of the consequences of launching any cyber offensive against Russia, which may retaliate unpredictably. While they have avoided any military confrontation, which, as Biden declared, would tantamount to starting World War III, they may also be balking at launching a cyber-fusillade against Russia on fears of provoking a cyber-war.
The alternative, however, would be to be passive spectators to a raging war that can annihilate Ukraine and have far wider ramifications. Hesitance to counter military adventurism would also embolden both Russia, and China, to pursue their hegemonistic ambitions to the detriment of global peace and stability.
Indeed, Russia had been behind the first known case of cyber-attack on an entire country, when it had blitzed the tiny Baltic state of Estonia with a three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks in 2007. Stung by the Estonians’ removal of the Soviet war memorial of the ‘Bronze Soldier’ in central Tallinn, Russia, which then too had been led by Putin, had retaliated by disabling websites of the government, political parties, media houses, financial institutions, and companies.
