Security minister Tom Tugendhat has highlighted Russia’s ‘barbarism’ towards Ukraine goes beyond the battlefield – cyber-space.
The invaded country has suffered a threefold growth in cyber-attacks over the past year.
Russian hacking has, at times, deployed in combination with missile strikes, according to a senior figure in the country’s cybersecurity agency.
The attacks on Ukraine often taken the form of destructive, disk-erasing wiper malware, according to Viktor Zhora, a leading figure in the country’s SSSCIP agency.
He spoke on a visit to London’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of GCHQ, where he and Ukrainian colleagues were due to discuss how to work together to tackle the Russian threat.
Tugendhat claimed the fight “against Russian barbarism goes beyond the battlefield” and terror inflicted on civilians.
MORE UK SECURITY NEWS
“There is the real and persistent threat of a Russian cyber-attack on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure,” he added.
Russian hackers can be highly professional military groups, part of the Kremlin’s security complex, through to criminal gangs.
Ukraine has enjoyed some success in tackling and containing hacking, although Kyiv has been helped by substantial support from the west.
The UK has provided a £6.35m package of support, helping with incident response and information sharing, plus hardware and software.