UK intelligence outlines actions of Russian military intelligence in cyberspace

UK Defence Intelligence has described the cyber activities of Russian military intelligence unit 29155 in a new intelligence update on the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Source: UK Defence Intelligence update dated 11 September, as reported by European Pravda

Details: UK intelligence recalled that on 5 September, the UK National Cyber Security Centre publicly stated that the Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) Unit 29155 has been responsible for cyber operations worldwide since 2020.

At least some of the group's cyber operations were almost certainly aimed at supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Operations have included the WhisperGate destructive wiper malware,  used against Ukrainian targets in 2022. Other activities included website damage and network scanning for espionage purposes. WhisperGate was previously attributed to the Russian state; this new report directly links the attack to Unit 29155 .

Unit 29155 is believed to be responsible for coup attempts, sabotage and influence operations, and assassination attempts across Europe. As such, offensive cyber operations mark an evolution in the capabilities of Unit 29155.

This once again underlines the importance that the Russian state attaches to cyberspace in the context of its invasion of Ukraine.

Background:

• Germany's BfV intelligence service issued a warning on Monday that a group of cybercriminals belonging to Russian military intelligence Unit 29155 was behind a series of online attacks against NATO and EU countries.
• Earlier, the Estonian Internal Security Service (ISS) issued a similar warning about Unit 29155's activities.

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