Russia Launches Massive CyberAttack on Ukraine

Ukraine is now fighting what it calls the largest cyber attack in the country’s history, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the US Intelligence community “continues to assess what happened there.”

While Austin was clear not to speculate, he did say a cyber attack of this kind is a “play taken out of his playbook.”

He added that the US would respond intensely to any cyber attack on NATO.

“In terms of a response to the cyber attack, if someone attacks the United States of America, then certainly, we will — we will hold that — that element responsible or accountable, and — and at this point, nobody — you know, we — we haven’t seen that. We have — we have not been attacked. NATO elements have not been attacked. So we’ll leave it at that,” he said.

While details regarding ongoing investigations are typically not available for security reasons, the US is of course experienced when it comes to analyzing the possibility of Russian cyberwarfare.

“Before any attack we’d — we’d expect to see cyber attacks, false-flag activities and a — and a — and a number of others — increasing rhetoric in the information space, and we’re beginning to see more and more of that,” Austin said.

Given that they are by no means restricted to geographical boundaries, many are likely to be conscious of cyber threats to other strategically vital areas in Europe or even the US. What could they involve? Well certainly the first and most obvious one could be a cyber attack on electrical grids to in effect “blind” Ukrainian or NATO forces. Beyond that, there are many possibilities such as a simple “denial of service” attack to intrude upon and shut down computer networks, perhaps even military computers.

There could even be cyber attacks, jamming or EW actions against specific networks crucial to satellites and weapons systems, a possibility enhanced by the growing extent to which weapons systems are cyber reliant. This is a key reason why US weapons developers have been consistent and vigorous when it comes to “baking in” cyber protections early in the developmental process of weapons systems.