The American cybersecurity company Mandiant stated in a report that people from Russian intelligence were responsible for the cyber attack that led to a power outage in some regions of Ukraine in October 2022. This information did not appear until recently, even though the incident occurred more than a year ago.
Mandiant’s report points to the incident as another milestone in Russia’s cyberwarfare.
Hackers operating under the code name “Sandworm” carried out a complex operation in which the circuit breakers of an electrical substation were disabled at the same time as a missile strike.
This coordinated action led to a power outage, but the missile attack made it look like the explosion was caused by it.
To conceal their activities, the group used malware (malware to erase data stored on hard drives), as detailed in the report.
Sandworm is said to be the cyber warfare division of the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. There has been no comment yet from Russia regarding the allegations contained in the Mandiant report.
Cover image illustration, Source: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images
