The war in Ukraine has come with an ever-present threat of cyber catastrophe, as experts and US military officials remain on high alert for potential hacks. And while the big one has yet to come, the battle online continues to escalate. UK intelligence officers warned on Thursday that Russia was increasingly seeking out cyber targets as its ground military campaign in Ukraine stalls. Additional reports on Wednesday revealed Russian hackers recently attempted to penetrate the networks of Nato and the militaries of some eastern European countries. These developments showed that “things are heating up” on the cyber front, said Theresa Payton, cybersecurity expert and former White House chief information officer. “We should prepare for the worst and operate at our best,” she said. Still, Payton noted, Russia had been very slow to deploy cyber tactics in the war to date. There could be a number of reasons for this, she said: Putin might not feel the need to use cyber-attacks in his strategy at this juncture in the war, or he might want to avoid additional retaliation promised by the US in the case of a cyberwar.
Read more : Russia’s slow cyberwar in Ukraine begins to escalate, experts say.
