Ukraine war: Russian hackers tried damaging power grid, Ukraine says
- Ukraine says it prevented the group known as Sandworm from damaging high-voltage electrical substations, computers and networking equipment
- In 2017, Sandworm was responsible for NotPetya, a devastating ransomware campaign causing billions of dollars of damage to some of the world’s largest companies
A notorious hacking group linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency launched a cyberattack on Ukrainian energy facilities, according to Ukrainian cybersecurity officials.
The group, known as Sandworm, sought to damage high-voltage electrical substations, computers and networking equipment, according to a statement on Tuesday from Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team.
The hackers carried out two waves of attacks and had sought to take offline an unnamed energy company’s infrastructure last Friday evening, according to the cybersecurity agency, following an initial breach that occurred “no later than” February.
However, “the implementation of the malicious plan has so far been prevented”, the agency said in its statement.
The hacking campaign deployed malicious “wiper” software that can delete data stored on computers, rendering them inoperable, according to researchers at the cybersecurity firm ESET LLC. ESET and Microsoft Corp assisted Ukraine with an investigation of the breach.