How russian government-controlled hacking groups shift their tactics, objectives and capacities

The SSSCIP has prepared an analytical report Russia’s Cyber Tactics H1 2023.

The report contains information that may be helpful to Ukrainian cybersecurity specialists. Specifically, it will be useful for:

understanding russian hackers’ motives, capabilities to carry out cyber operations as well as their choice of targets;
anticipating the extent of cyber capacities that may be employed by the enemy in the current and future geopolitical conflicts;
seeking new tools and methods to counter hostile cyberattacks, etc.

The new trends of 2023 include increased focus of the enemy hackers on Ukrainian law enforcement. It is about intelligence operations aimed at accessing the data on the evidence of russia’s war crimes, collected and submitted materials for trials and prosecution, arrest warrants for suspected agents, etc.

Energy and media sectors remain among the major targets of the enemy hackers.

Besides, the SSSCIP specialists have revealed an indicative trend of recurring attacks. Hackers revisit their prior targets that own and operate critical data, required by the russian military. This approach enables the perpetrators to strategically plan their future operations and forecast our responses. Early knowledge of the target entity’s network infrastructure, protection measures, key personnel and communication modalities offers the attackers a substantial advantage when it comes to exploiting the earlier compromised organizations.