Cyberwarfare in the Digital Age: Ukraine vs. Russia

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Summary Bullets:

Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

• In the months leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country was laying the groundwork for cyberwar.

• But Ukraine is fighting back with the support of its own underground hacking community and hackers from beyond its borders playing a part in interfering with Russian operations and trying to stall the invading country’s momentum.

Cyberattacks have been used by hacktivists in the past to wage political and ethical battles for years. But in the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is taking cyberwarfare to a new level. Months before to Russia’s February 24th military invasion of Ukraine, Russia took to cyberspace to infiltrate and in some cases destabilize networks within its neighbor. Reports of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks allegedly initiated by Russia surfaced the week before the invasion, flooding the networks of Ukraine’s defense ministry and two banks. The attacks against the banks were launched in two waves, with the first interrupting service. The second stage involved text messages to clients telling them the bank was no longer functioning.

And there are indicators that Russia had breached Ukraine’s months before and was lying in wait to attack, installing data wiper malware on hundreds of computers In Ukraine. The wiper malware can delete all files from a computer, essentially making the computer unusable.

Should Enterprises Voyage into the Metaverse?

Summary Bullets:

Gary Barton – Analyst, Business Network and IT Services

• Enterprises should beware the hype – the metaverse is not a decision that needs to be made this year, if ever

• However, elements of the metaverse are with us now and can offer genuine benefits – e.g., for training or collaboration

The ‘metaverse’ is manna from heaven for tech journalists (and, indeed, analysts!) as it is poorly defined, can be applied to both current technology and fantastical future ideas, and is a concept much loved by technology giants such as Microsoft and Facebook/Meta Platforms Inc. This sort of scenario is true of many new technologies, but the metaverse is a more ethereal and intangible concept than most – to the extent that even its name is meta.