Tag Archives: Policy

Russia inches closer to its splinternet dream

Kirill Kudryavtsev | Getty Images reader comments 56 with 44 posters participating Share this story Russian Twitter users noticed something strange when they tried to access the service on March 4: They couldn’t. For the previous six days, anyone trying to access Twitter from within Russia saw their Internet speed slow to a crawl, no… Read More »

Feds allege destructive Russian hackers targeted US oil refineries

Enlarge / Critical infrastructure sites such as this oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, rely on safety systems. reader comments 27 with 20 posters participating Share this story For years, the hackers behind the malware known as Triton or Trisis have stood out as a uniquely dangerous threat to critical infrastructure: a group of digital… Read More »

Banks on alert for Russian reprisal cyberattacks on Swift

NurPhoto | Getty Images reader comments 66 with 43 posters participating Share this story Big banks fear that Swift faces a growing threat of Russian cyberattacks after seven of the country’s lenders were kicked off the global payments messaging system over the weekend. VTB, Russia’s second-biggest bank, and Promsvyazbank, which finances Russia’s war machine, were… Read More »

Russia’s disinformation machinery breaks down in wake of Ukraine invasion

reader comments 48 with 33 posters participating Share this story For decades now, Vladimir Putin has slowly, carefully, and stealthily curated online and offline networks of influence. These efforts have borne lucrative fruit, helping Russia become far more influential than a country so corrupt and institutionally fragile had any right to be. The Kremlin and… Read More »

The secret US mission to bolster Ukraine’s cyber defenses ahead of Russia’s invasion

gwengoat | Getty Images reader comments 109 with 42 posters participating Share this story Months before the Russian invasion, a team of Americans fanned out across Ukraine looking for a very specific kind of threat. Some team members were soldiers with the US Army’s Cyber Command. Others were civilian contractors and some employees of American… Read More »

Hackers stoke pandemonium amid Russia’s war in Ukraine

Elena Lacey | Getty Images reader comments 7 with 6 posters participating Share this story On Thursday, hackers defaced a Russian Space Research Institute website and leaked files that they allege are stolen from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Their message? “Leave Ukraine alone else Anonymous will f*ck you up even more.” Meanwhile a DDoS… Read More »

Ukraine asks ICANN to revoke Russian domains and shut down DNS root servers

reader comments 115 with 77 posters participating Share this story A Ukraine government official on Monday asked the nonprofit group that oversees the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) to shut down DNS root servers in Russia and revoke Russian domains such as .ru, .рф, and .su. The letter to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names… Read More »

Ukraine asks Musk for Starlink terminals as Russian invasion disrupts broadband

Enlarge / The new version of Dishy McFlatface. reader comments 154 with 81 posters participating Share this story SpaceX is sending Starlink user terminals to Ukraine after a request from a government official. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, used Twitter to make a direct plea to SpaceX CEO Elon… Read More »

$3.6 billion bitcoin seizure shows how hard it is to launder cryptocurrency

Enlarge / The IRS detailed the winding and tangled routes the couple allegedly took to launder a portion of the nearly 120,000 bitcoins stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016. William Whitehurst | Getty Images reader comments 126 with 81 posters participating Share this story On Tuesday, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan were arrested… Read More »

Hactivists say they hacked Belarus rail system to stop Russian military buildup

Enlarge / Servicemen of Russia’s Eastern Military District units attend a welcoming ceremony as they arrive in Belarus to take part in joint military exercises. Russia’s military is combining its own means of transport with train travel. Getty Images reader comments 163 with 83 posters participating, including story author Share this story Hacktivists in Belarus… Read More »