Bored of Cyberwar

In the early days of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, reports abounded of hacktivists and cybercriminals massively enlisting in volunteer efforts for an unprecedented online battle royal.

But if that was ever true it barely lasted. So says a new study by researchers at three British universities. Their finding: The cybercrime underground in particular played only a minor role in the cyberconflict between Russia and Ukraine. Basically, they lost interest after just a few weeks.

The researchers say targets promoted by the volunteer IT Army of Ukraine — a Kyiv-led initiative — were seldom defaced though many were flooded with junk data in distributed-denial-of-service attacks. But those attacks quickly dropped off by the end of March. Mostly ineffectual, the researchers likened them to a prank, like hiding the vodka under the frozen peas at your local supermarket.

Serious cyberattacks have of course occurred, many by state-backed hackers. Ukraine has suffered them repeatedly against vital communications, administrative and energy infrastructure. In Russia, data has been stolen from the telecommunications regulator and destroyed at a major broadcaster. Other attacks have likely gone unreported.