Cyber shield of Russia helps to repel heavy attacks from the United States

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

According to Vladimir Putin, Russia is making the necessary efforts to defend against cyber threats. Earlier, the Security Council of the Russian Federation warned about the coming era of digital terrorism, the scale of the consequences of which will be comparable to the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Putin's words sounded against the background of the discussion of The New York Times publication about the frequent cyberattacks by the American special services on the Russian energy system. According to experts, such attacks can endanger the lives and health of millions of people and cause colossal damage. Analysts believe that a whole range of measures is needed to protect against such threats: from ensuring Russia's independence in the IT sector to diplomatic efforts aimed at creating international mechanisms to control cyberspace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is making the necessary efforts to defend against cyberattacks. The Russian leader said this on June 20 during the traditional direct line with the citizens of the Russian Federation, answering a question about the publication in the American newspaper The New York Times, dedicated to the cyberattacks of the American military against the Russian energy infrastructure.

“We must somehow react to this, understand what this is about,” the Russian president noted.

According to him, Moscow has repeatedly offered Washington to start a dialogue to develop any rules in cyberspace, "but so far it has not received any intelligible answer."

“As for the operation of our critical infrastructure, energy, and other areas, of course, we must think about how to protect ourselves from any cyber attacks and any negative impact. We are not only thinking about it, but also doing it,”Vladimir Putin stressed

Earlier, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Yuri Kokov said on June 19 that the danger from the use of cyber weapons is comparable to the consequences of the use of weapons of mass destruction. He announced this during an international meeting of high representatives in charge of security issues in Ufa.

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“The era of technological and digital terrorism is coming, which in terms of the scale of its consequences in the near future may be comparable to weapons of mass destruction,” Kokov stressed.

According to him, one of the threats of a new type is the danger of terrorists' interference in the operation of automated control systems of critical facilities for the country.

The statement by the Deputy Secretary of the Security Council came against the background of the discussion in the world press of the message of The New York Times about the cyber operations of the American military against the Russian energy infrastructure. Allegedly, the malicious programs used by the US military are capable of collecting information about the functioning of the Russian energy system, and can also be used to carry out cyberattacks.

"Such statements about cyber attacks are, in fact, an admission that America is at war with us, because cyber war is also a war," a Russian entrepreneur and IT expert, CEO of Ashmanov and Partners, said in a conversation with RT. Igor Ashmanov.

Reign of darkness

The main goal of potential US cyberattacks is to destabilize the internal situation of rival states, said Alexander Brazhnikov, head of the non-profit partnership Union of Information Defenders, in an interview with RT.

“Attacking power grids is one of the most effective ways. Blackout or power outages can cause colossal damage to the economy and even cause a social explosion,”the expert explained

In turn, the head of the Center for the Study of Public Applied National Security Problems, Alexander Zhilin, noted that cyberattacks against power systems can lead to difficulties in the work of all city services (up to water pipelines and treatment facilities) and, as the example of the recent energy accident in Argentina shows, affect tens of millions people.

“If communications are out of order, if, for example, the population is left completely without water, all the puddles will be drunk on the third day. And on the fourth, babies will start dying, then old people and women,”Zhilin said in an interview with RT.

According to Zhilin, the strategy of destroying the infrastructure is "typical for the Anglo-Saxons" and their allies, which is why the Ukrainian security forces are constantly shelling treatment systems in the Donbass.

“It's no secret that American cyber troops are involved in a widespread power outage in Venezuela (in March 2019 - RT),” said Sergei Sudakov, an Americanist, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military Sciences, in a conversation with RT. - If you do not protect your energy facilities, then whole neighborhoods and cities, even countries, can be de-energized. This means that you can lose a huge number of people, for example, those who are connected to life support devices in hospitals."

A real hot war

According to Alexander Brazhnikov, hacking of equipment at nuclear power plants, hydroelectric power plants and thermal power plants is fraught with very serious consequences. It cannot be ruled out that such sabotage could potentially lead to large-scale man-made disasters.

“A nuclear power plant, at least for some time, will lose the ability to regulate processes in a nuclear reactor, a hydroelectric power plant - the volume of water,” emphasizes Brazhnikov.

In the first case, according to the expert, there will be a danger of an explosion in the power unit and radioactive contamination of the territory. An accident at a hydroelectric power station can lead to the destruction of the plant and the death of at least its maintenance personnel.

“If the CHP plant is attacked, the temperature of the water in the pipes may get out of control,” the expert notes.

This, in his opinion, threatens accidents on heating systems and a cessation of electricity supply to houses.

According to Alexander Zhilin, cyberattacks can also affect gas supplies, which is extremely dangerous for Russia with its harsh winter.

Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP globallookpress.com © Serguei Fomine

“If you turn off this infrastructure, people will simply die out,” the expert says.

According to Sergei Sudakov, using cyber weapons, "America may try to plunge other countries into chaos" by disrupting payment systems, airports, enterprises using automated systems, and all vital infrastructure.

In turn, the director of the Monitoring and Forecasting Fund, political scientist Leonid Savin, said in a conversation with RT that, depending on the virus used, as a result of the cyber attack, “billions of rubles may be damaged: servers in banks are out of order, some large objects are de-energized, planes, especially those made in the USA, may start to fall."

“We are talking about weapons that are more dangerous than nuclear weapons,” says Alexander Zhilin. "In the conditions of modern highly urbanized societies, we cannot do without communications, nor without electricity, nor without gas supplies."

According to Sergei Sudakov, one of the main tasks of the American cyber troops is "by any means to get close to the military infrastructure of Russia" in order to disable it, but "at this stage it is unattainable for them."

In turn, Igor Ashmanov notes that large-scale cyberattacks on infrastructure facilities can mean the beginning of a large-scale military conflict.

“A cyberattack on critical infrastructure is part of a hot war,” the expert said. - So if the Americans start attacking our infrastructure, we will have to attend to the question of whether their missiles took off and what time they have. It will be a real hot war."

Experts also note that in the hands of the American special services there are tools that allow them to pass off their attack as someone else's, which can be used both to obfuscate traces and to find false reasons for attacks on the enemy's infrastructure. In particular, in 2017, the existence of such programs was reported by WikiLeaks.

“This is a new type of weapon, it is difficult to trace where the attack is coming from, you can use such exploits that are loaded into systems, stay there for many months or years, and then are activated. You can create the illusion that the attack came from another state or even inside Russia. In general, the methods are rather sophisticated, and the legal framework is rather vague, emphasizes Leonid Savin.

Sincere confessions

The sensational publication of The New York Times came out on June 15 and caused a reaction in the upper echelons of power in both Russia and the United States. American President Donald Trump called the publication false and accused the journalists of treason.

In turn, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov noted that if any American departments are still engaged in such activities without the knowledge of the president, then this indicates "a hypothetical possibility … of all signs of cyberwar, cyberwar actions against Russia." According to Peskov, "strategic, vital areas of the economy (Russia. - RT) have been and are being subjected to cyberattacks from abroad on several occasions," and the United States, despite the proposals of President Vladimir Putin, is in no hurry to respond to proposals for jointly countering cybercrime.

Later, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, said that the Russian special services were aware of the plans of Western countries to attack Russian infrastructure in cyberspace.

The Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation told reporters that “most of the critical energy entities are connected to the state system of protection” from cyberattacks.

As previously noted by the Russian media with reference to Nikolai Murashov, Deputy Director of the National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents (NCCCI), in 2018 more than 4 billion attacks were recorded on Russia's critical information infrastructure. Among the countries that are sources of threats to Russia's information security, according to the NKTsKI, the United States plays the main role.

This is not the first time American media have reported about actions in the Internet space against Russia. For example, in February of this year, The Washington Post, citing its sources, announced a successful cyberattack by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the US Cyber Command against the St. Petersburg-based Internet Investigation Agency, which the United States suspects of allegedly interfering in the 2016 presidential election. … The American security forces did not officially claim responsibility for the cyberattack, but they did not deny it either.

“It seems to me that it is common for all security services not to talk about their work, so the general public is not very aware. Therefore, we do not particularly imagine how far this can go, - commented in an interview with RT on messages about possible US cyberattacks against Russia, an American expert in the field of Internet technologies Roger Kay.

John Bolton Reuters © Kevin Lamarque

On June 11, John Bolton, Advisor to the President of the United States on National Security Affairs, announced his intention to expand "offensive operations" in cyberspace.

According to experts, Washington has an impressive experience in conducting such operations. In particular, in 2017, The New York Times noted that since 2014, the United States has carried out cyberattacks against the DPRK. In particular, sabotage was carried out at the defense facilities of North Korea.

In turn, former NSA employee Edward Snowden previously reported that the United States carried out massive hacks of computer networks in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Also, according to The New York Times, the United States has previously used cyber weapons against Iran. In particular, Washington is credited with using the Stuxnet virus to attack Iran's nuclear centrifuges in 2009-2010.

More independence

Although critical Russian infrastructure facilities are disconnected from the World Wide Web, this is not a panacea for the malicious actions of American hackers, notes Leonid Savin. Moreover, attacks can affect various objects of the Russian economy.

"There are serious risks, since we use quite a lot of equipment produced in the West," Savin said, stressing that vulnerabilities can be left in Western software on purpose, which will then be used by foreign special services.

Igor Ashmanov noted that the dependence of Russian companies on foreign suppliers in the information sphere harms the country's security.

Network wires in the server room globallookpress.com © Oliver Berg / dpa

“In our country, most of the critical infrastructure and large industrial production runs on Western software that constantly downloads updates and is controlled from the cloud, and the update is somewhere abroad, and this is the main problem,” Ashmanov said to RT. - A cyber terrorist is not needed for something that can simply be turned off with a switch. We need to ensure import substitution, especially in the industrial, energy and transport areas."

Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Communications, as reported by TASS, said that "the use of domestic intelligent metering systems, telecommunications equipment, component base and secure protocols in the energy sector" can be "insurance" against hacker attacks.

“The Russian leadership is well aware of the danger of breaking into strategic facilities, which include power systems,” notes Alexander Brazhnikov. - As far as I can tell, at domestic power plants there is a redundant system that allows you to control the processes in manual mode. It is necessary precisely in the event that automated systems are turned off. At the same time, Western energy infrastructure facilities rely more on digital technologies. Machines have almost completely supplanted humans. On the one hand, this increases labor productivity and reduces operating costs. But on the other hand, it is difficult to say if the staff in the US and EU will handle an emergency. In this respect, Russia can be called a more secure country."

Reciprocal move

On June 20, the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for international cooperation in the field of information security, Andrei Krutskikh, said that Russia was seeking to agree with the United States on the "rules of the game" in cyberspace. As Dmitry Peskov noted earlier, “it is President Putin, the Russian side that has repeatedly tried to initiate international cooperation in order to jointly counter any manifestation of cybercrime. However, according to the press secretary of the Russian president, "our American partners have never responded to these proposals of ours."

According to Leonid Savin, even without the participation of the United States, such international mechanisms are needed. At the very least, they can become an instrument of international pressure on the United States, which does not want to recognize any rules in cyberspace.

“It is important to lobby for the adoption of international legal norms in order to criminalize such actions in relation not only to Russia, but also to other states,” says Savin.

As noted by Wired, many American analysts consider the Trump administration's approach to offensive actions in the cybersphere too dangerous. They fear that in the event of an attack on Russian infrastructure, as a result of our country's retaliatory actions, the United States could suffer much more.

According to Alexander Zhilin, the attitude of the United States to the use of cyber weapons is comparable to how they behaved after becoming the owners of nuclear weapons. As long as Washington had an advantage in this area, it could use atomic bombs (against Japan) and develop plans for nuclear strikes against the USSR. However, after the Soviet Union acquired its own nuclear weapons and began to build up its arsenal, it was the prospect of receiving a commensurate response that became the reason for Washington's non-use of these weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, the Americans even agreed to create bilateral strategic arms control mechanisms.

According to the expert, in order to force the United States to negotiate and prevent the use of cyber weapons against Russia, it is necessary to improve both the defense system against attacks and the offensive potential in this area.