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Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

prm.ua

11–20 of 507 posts

Re: Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

#11
post #4

>Ukrainian cyber activists, in cooperation with military intelligence... So the foreign intelligence services gave them a button push so it's not a direct cyber war on Russia.

We’re talking about Ukraine and Russia, there has been a war going on for years now. Nobody needs or wants plausible deniability here.

Re: Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

#12
post #8
post #4

>Ukrainian cyber activists, in cooperation with military intelligence... So the foreign intelligence services gave them a button push so it's not a direct cyber war on Russia.

It doesn't say anything about foreign intelligence services

It's reasonable to read it as implied

Re: Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

#14

While this is a move that will hinder production for a while I'd say maybe they should have been more creative They should have checked the source codes and added some changes to make drones unpredictably unreliable "Oh this totally innocent code change? Oh look it makes the gps act weird if longitude is between a certain range how weird"

How long do you think it would've taken for them to realize that happened just and reflashed the drones?

Re: Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

#15
post #4

>Ukrainian cyber activists, in cooperation with military intelligence... So the foreign intelligence services gave them a button push so it's not a direct cyber war on Russia.

Likely. But also could have been some thugs with a wrench in a basement and the sys admin giving up the ssh keys and 2fa etc.

It's Ukraine. Are you aware of the "banks' debt collectors"? They had thugs knocking on your door (and your face) for an overdue loan payment; they would _of course_ use violence/torture to extract information.

Re: Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

#17
post #4

>Ukrainian cyber activists, in cooperation with military intelligence... So the foreign intelligence services gave them a button push so it's not a direct cyber war on Russia.

> foreign intelligence services gave them a button push so it's not a direct cyber war on Russia

meanwhile, russian intelligence services have already directly attacked nato countries, with barely any real deniability.

Re: Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

#18
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't say anything about foreign intelligence services

It's reasonable to read it as implied

Are you suggesting Ukrainians don't have any agency? It's always someone else?

That position sounds very weird.

I think the most likely explanation is it's the Ukrainians defending Ukraine against Russia's unjustified invasion.

Re: Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

#19

While this is a move that will hinder production for a while I'd say maybe they should have been more creative They should have checked the source codes and added some changes to make drones unpredictably unreliable "Oh this totally innocent code change? Oh look it makes the gps act weird if longitude is between a certain range how weird"

When there's hundreds of drones raining down on your civilians every day, just disabling the production has a a higher priority than being cutesy with things that might work further away into the future.

Re: Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer

#20

While this is a move that will hinder production for a while I'd say maybe they should have been more creative They should have checked the source codes and added some changes to make drones unpredictably unreliable "Oh this totally innocent code change? Oh look it makes the gps act weird if longitude is between a certain range how weird"

How long do you think it would've taken for them to realize that happened just and reflashed the drones?

You can reflash however you want for some bugs. The deal would be to make it a dormant attack not a destroy all in one go and expose the payload. There have been successful hacks where a buffer overflow was inserted in in a one off write, that was then targeted when needed. If employed carefully in special situations, this could be an important weapon. There are also deeper levels of compromise: why compromise the source code or a the firmware binary when you can permanently compromise the production in a subtle way. Working your penetration slowly so that the whole plant or even production system must be scrapped by the enemy. At the very least gather intel.

Look at successful cyber campaigns like stuxnet or an actual hardware sabotage from Israel. The attacks were dormant until they were ready for maximum effect. Randomly disabling a production site, without a strategic context, is going to be an isolated win, or an operational victory.

I remember reading some articles about the pentagon being a bit upset at some of the strategic decisions of Ukraine's armed forces where they often push for morale boosting moments at big costs(i think 2 years ago they spent lots of resources to get a strategically irrelevant town). And honestly this is also what it looks like: You dont see a coordinated attack but spurious disconnected events. I think when you are gasping for air you hold on to anything you can, but still the goal is to win, not just look like winning.

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