Pro-Kremlin cybercriminal group ‘Killnet’ chooses Portugal as one of its targets
Bruno Castro, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Visionware, stressed that this is the second time in less than a week that ‘Killnet’ launches an identical appeal, after the last one, last Thursday and Friday, affected area of Health in several countries, including Portugal, having reached the portals of the General Directorate of Health (DGS) and the Faculty of Pharmacy.
According to the CEO of the company accredited by NATO in information security and cybersecurity solutions, the group of Russian cyberactivists has launched several recruitment campaigns for cyberattacks in several Western countries, in addition to the United States, allegedly in response to the pro-Ukraine, in which Portugal is included.
“The relationship that Killnet has with the Russian State, or very close with the Kremlin, goes through the idea that either it is subcontracted as a mercenary or it is even because of political affiliation. They are doing ultra-violent actions directed at all that are critical infrastructures and on an ongoing basis. There was a wave of attacks here that were quite successful”, he underlined.
This success, he continued, and based on last week’s attacks, had media coverage and aimed, as in other incursions, at creating a brand for the ‘Killnet’ group.
“[O sucesso] serve for [a própria ‘killnet’] self-promote as the author or origin of the attacks and to be able to recruit more soldiers to increase its strength, on the one hand, and, at the same time, also increase the capacity for destruction and attack for the new waves that will come next”, he underlined. the CEO of Visionware.
“Cyber warfare has been around for a long time. What has been happening is automating and professionalizing these cybercriminal groups so that they can carry out this type of action on behalf of a State. It will be the next step and, normally in a very conventional pirate analogy, depending on which history book we read, I can either be seen as a malicious pirate, criminal or thief or I can be seen, on the other side of history, as a military hero”, he maintained.
According to Bruno Castro, in this context, there is also a more comprehensive approach outside the United States “with the idea that all that are pro-Ukrainian States will also be the target, later, of devastating attacks”.
“This one [ataque] was clearly mediatic and insisted that it be so. There has already been another ‘call to arms’ here from other cybercriminal groups or ‘lone wolves’ [lobos solitários] who also wanted to support the ’cause’ and this will be an ongoing process, which will continue, in which Portugal fits in this context because it is openly pro-Ukraine and will, in theory, be part of the next targets of Killnet or other cybercriminal supporters from Russia,” he added.
In Portugal, he continued, what Visionware has been doing is no more than what it has been doing all over the world.
“We work a lot on the preventive component, that of ‘awareness’, being able to constantly analyze and monitor what is happening in this criminal underworld and, in parallel, we are continuously ‘stressing’ our customers’ security infrastructures, as well how to pay attention to internal controls to protect and recover from cyber attacks”, he explained.
“Attacks of this nature and very targeted at critical infrastructure (…) is clearly the concept of cyber warfare: attacking with violence, interrupting the basic services of a society and acting in jeopardy of the rule of law”, he maintained.
“From there, [a intenção é] immediately create instability in the population, through panic and instil a feeling of terror and insecurity in the population through the interruption of basic services, such as energy, communications, water, transport, banking. This is what sustains the basic pillars of a society that, when interrupted in a logic of digital warfare, has an impact and, at times, is more violent than a conventional, bellicose war”, he summarized.
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