By James PearsonLONDON (Reuters) - Russian cyber spies were behind a hack which disrupted part of Ukraine's power grid in late 2022, U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant, part of Google, said in a report on Thursday, in a rare and advanced form of cyberwarfare.
Last October, a massive wave of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's power network caused blackouts in many parts of the country, prompting Kyiv to halt electricity exports and leaving four regions temporarily without electricity.
Sandworm hackers rose to prominence in 2015 after a separate cyberattack against Ukraine’s power grid which cut off power for around 255,000 people.
The disruptive, digital, intrusion was widely considered to be one of the first, known, successful cyberattacks against a power network.
“There have only been a handful of incidents similar to this, with the majority carried out by Sandworm,” Mandiant analyst Nathan Brubaker said.
Persons:
James Pearson, ”, Sandworm, Nathan Brubaker, Christopher Bing, Sharon Singleton
Organizations:
James Pearson LONDON, Google
Locations:
Russian, Russia, Ukraine, Kyiv, London, Washington