Jouni began denial-of-service attacks at his home in Helsinki on Thursday evening, February 24th. That morning, Russia had invaded Ukraine.
His first targets were kremlin.ru, lukoil.ru and gazprom.ru – the websites of the Russian presidential administration and two energy giants.
Jouni, who works in the IT industry, had never been involved in hacking operations before, but could no longer sit in his fields. The “new reality” raised the need to do something, he says.
– Such a thing that you would have to pull the Boots and herring salad yourself [maastopuvun] on, suddenly it is no longer an incomprehensible idea, he tells .
Jouni is not his real name. does not reveal the man’s identity because his activities involve illegality and other risks.
He joined the IT Army of Ukraine on the Telegram messaging service, where information is being shared about Russian targets for which a DDoS denial-of-service attack is requested. The channel currently has over 270,000 followers.
A DDoS attack means that a particular server is being bombarded from a variety of sources, resulting in a website being loaded, often crashing.
Jouni feels he is a small part of the “front” of the Ukrainian hacking army because he is doing things at Ukraine’s request. He says that he has guided other Finns to participate in the “dossaus”.
– I am committed to attacking with all our might against those who advance the attacker’s agenda in cyberspace, he says.
The state allied itself with the hackers
Defending Ukraine against Russia has mobilized online activists around the world.
Immediately on the first day of the war, the hackers behind the nickname Anonymous declared a cyber war against Russia.
For the rest of the week, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov your bet (you switch to another service) Ukrainian network experts and invited them to join the above-mentioned volunteer IT army.
Since then, it has also been joined by numerous foreigners.
The situation is completely exceptional, says the research director of the security company F-Secure Mikko Hyppönen.
– Ukraine as a state actively encourages civilians to take part in the fight, including online from all over the world. This has not been seen before, Hyppönen says.
Ukraine is a technologically competent country, Hyppönen says. The country has good universities and a high-quality software industry – and years of experience in cyber attacks in Russia.
Although the Ukrainians are skilled, there is speculation in the industry about the role of the United States in the background of cyber business. Hyppönen emphasizes that Anonymous, for example, is just a secret brand whose name can be hidden by anyone.
It can also provide a cover story for a state attack.
– Without this chaos and dozens of players, a cyber attack by the U.S. military would be really easy to see. Now even a state actor could go in, Hyppönen thinks.
Train traffic in Belarus stopped
In addition to simple denial-of-service attacks, recent days have also seen more sophisticated intrusions into information systems.
A group of Cyber Partisans hacking into Belarus said it had infiltrated a train control network in Belarus on Sunday.
For the time being, Mikko Hyppönen considers the attacks on the Russian banking system to be the most serious, as they also affect the lives of ordinary citizens. Although the most prominent have been the blocking of Russian TV channels, their impact remains small.
The same is said by his colleague, Director of Information Security Erka Koivunen F-Secure.
– If ‘s website is hacked for a couple of hours, how much will it convince Finnish citizens? Does everyone turn to the view that everything is probably a lie? I don’t think so [uutistoimisto] Dosing the sides of a cup reverses the course of the war, Koivunen says.
Hackers can do unintentional damage
Many experts fear that well-intentioned cyber-attacks could escalate conflict and harm bystanders.
According to him, hackers acting on their own can accidentally overthrow emergency services or health systems in Russia. The act would hurt Russian civilians who would direct their anger at the Ukrainian government.
Amateurs can also mess up state cyber operations, which could lead to their disclosure, Hyppönen points out.
– It is likely that there will be clashes now that there are so many players, he says.
The same attack destroyed the information systems of the Ukrainian Border Guard, which has slowed the entry of fleeing people across the border.
If Russia’s cyber attack devastated NATO countries, it could have unpredictable consequences, guesses (you switch to another service) Democratic Chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner.
Warner paints a situation where Russia would cut off electricity in Poland, for example, as a result of which people could die in hospitals or in traffic.
Reuters (switch to another service) according to an anonymous NATO official interviewed, a cyber attack on a NATO country could trigger the use of Article 5. It could therefore be interpreted as an attack on the entire military alliance.
According to the official, what would eventually cross that limit has not been precisely defined. The decision would therefore be political.
Russia may retaliate against Finnish hackers as well
F-Secure’s Erka Koivunen is worried about the Finns leaving in a cyber war.
– There is a real war going on, and interfering in it does not even serve to resolve the conflict. It violates the law and may endanger the safety of yourself or your loved ones. And you may not want to disrupt the flow of intelligence operations when you treat him, he says.
According to Koivunen, the great power “approaching totalitarianism” has the ability to find out the perpetrators of individual security breaches and stop them the next time they cross the Russian border.
– This is not a toy war, he says.
Security expert at the EFFI Association for the Protection of Citizens’ Electronic Rights Mikko Kenttälä is also skeptical about the effectiveness of hacking operations.
For example, if hackers bring security vulnerabilities to the Russian administration, the administration could make its internal communications more difficult to monitor, making intelligence more difficult.
Anonymous has claimed to have leaked the country’s defense administration email IDs and passwords to the public.
– People want to find profits a lot. The goal is good, but it is not always certain in terms of what goes and what doesn’t, Kenttälä says.
He himself supports all activism that helps people protect themselves and gain access to the right information. Also the CEO of Tesla Elon Muskin To Ukraine satellite internet connection (switch to another service) is a “very hacker-minded solution” that doesn’t attack anyone, Kenttälä says. The attacks he would leave to the states.
Koivunen encourages activists to focus their energies on preventing disinformation and checking facts, as does the Bellingcat group.
– It’s useful in the fog of war. Random server upgrades are not. Of course, if Finland were to be attacked, it is obvious that many would try to throw rocks, sticks and also keyboards at the aggressor, Koivunen says.
Finnish online activist Jouni says that in this situation he is ready to use means that would not normally apply. He says he knows how to protect his identity and minimize risks.
According to him, it is clear that cyber activity has already had an impact. For example, disrupting rail traffic in Belarus is a significant act for him.
– Even if you can’t access a website, don’t underestimate it. This is an information war. We can propagate the right information ourselves when others try to propagate lies. If and when you figure it all out, I did at least something, he says.
Discuss this topic until Friday, March 4 at 11 p.m.