Ukrainian and Western intelligence officials feared Moscow’s elite corps of state-sponsored hackers would launch crippling cyberattacks to complement its invasion of Ukraine. Instead the cyberwar has been something closer to Internet trench warfare: a grinding conflict of relentless, if sometimes unsophisticated attacks that have taken casualties but had limited impact on the course of the fight.
Some attacks have been bothersome, slowing some Ukrainians’ internet service or knocking it out altogether, defacing websites, and destroying files on a small number of computers. Others have accomplished little more than keeping Ukraine’s cyber-defenders busy. More recently, as Russia’s strategic aims appear to be shifting to eastern Ukraine, new and more alarming attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector have been discovered, suggesting the next phase of the war could include a more active cyber conflict.
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