The rapid and coordinated sanctions imposed by the West in the wake of Moscow’s attack on Ukraine have wreaked havoc on the Russian financial system. There are fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin, angered by Washington for spearheading the intervention within the alliance and supplying weapons to the Ukrainians, will retaliate against the United States through a cyberattack, in which his country is far superior.
“If the situation gets worse, I think the Russians will launch cyberattacks on our critical infrastructure,” said Mike Gallgher, a member of the House of Representatives.
Gallagher’s fears are shared by other experts.
“Cyberattack can be even scarier than conventional weapons,” says Nicolas Chaillan, former head of the US Air Force Software Office.
IS THE USA READY FOR A POSSIBLE ‘CYBER Apocalypse’?
Chaillan replied, “The US is the leader in cyber attack, so we have very good cyber attack capability. But our defense is pretty weak. In my view, our defense is at the grade level.”
Nicolas Chaillan, a successful French-born entrepreneur and software expert, took a job with the US government in 2016 to help fight cybercrime internationally. Since then, it has been frustrated with the state’s ability to protect its cyber systems.
“The end result is that most companies don’t have enough experts to maintain their systems locally, so systems become accessible from the internet. In this case, they manage systems in a virtual way. This actually opens the door to huge cyber threats,” Chaillan says.
Chaillan recalls the 2021 cyber attack on the fuel delivery company Colonial Pipeline, which left half of the US East coast without fuel and affected the lives of millions of people for days.
“We know that China and Russia have hacked into US systems multiple times over months or even years. In fact, they’re probably in critical infrastructure systems right now,” says Nicolas Chaillan.
Chaillan states that Washington’s rivals may have already deployed their cyber tools into American systems, and that these tools may be operational at a critical time in the future.
“All in all, it’s pretty scary. It’s weird that we’re so indifferent,” Chaillan says.
Other experts say that the consequences of such cyberattacks, even those with a broader nature, will be limited to the geographically constrained and affected infrastructure sectors.
Jacob Galbreath, NATO’s cyber defense centre, said: “I think the extent of the damage that may occur will be large, but regional. There is a lot of flexibility in many of these industries. So if a region is affected, there is some flexibility in the system for that,” he says.
Some people note that the superpowers avoid an all-out attack because of the principle of mutual guarantee of destruction or MAD, which applies not only to nuclear warfare but also to cyber warfare.
This principle of deterrence is based on the idea that a cyberattack by one superpower against another will be met with a devastating response and eventually collapse both countries.
“The Russians must understand that our country will reciprocate,” Galbreath says.
Estonia was the first country to suffer a serious state-to-state cyberattack. In April 2007, hackers, possibly with ties to the Kremlin, attacked the websites of the country’s government, media and financial institutions. The attackers used botnets with compromised networks connected to the internet.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves was the President of Estonia at that time.
“Things have gotten a lot worse since then,” Ilves says.
With the spread of internet technology, the number of web-connected devices has increased. The potential for successful hacking has also increased.
Ilves states that there are half a million closed-circuit televisions in the city of London alone.
As computer technologies develop at lightning speed, superpowers can only guess what kind of cyber attack tools their opponents have. But experts say the war in Ukraine may have offered a unique look at Russia’s real capabilities and shed light on Moscow’s limits not only in conventional warfare, but also in cyberwarfare.
“If you had asked me three months ago, then I would have given you a different answer. But right now, it seems that Russia needs to spend more time on defense, they are not doing well,” NATO’s Galbreath says.
Analysts say that one of the reasons why Russia is not doing very well is the involvement of third parties in the conflict.
“The number of other world citizens who support or criticize Ukraine or Russia is quite impressive. In that respect, the impact on Russia has been devastating. People around the world are against what the Russian military and the Russian government are doing in Ukraine,” Galbreath says.
Experts say this regional war will have global implications and could reshape understanding of the distribution of power, including the virtual world.