The warning was issued by the Chief Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence on Monday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
“First of all, the [cyber] attack will be aimed at energy industry enterprises,” officials said, as quoted by the Ukrainska Pravda website.
Ukraine’s military intelligence added: “This will allow the enemy to try to increase the effect of missile strikes on electricity supply facilities, primarily in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine."
According to Kyiv, the aim of these cyber attacks will be to try and “slow down the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian defenders.”
Russia will draw on the experience of cyber attacks on Ukraine’s energy systems in 2015 and 2016, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing intelligence officials.
‘Attacks on critical infrastructure of Poland’
Moreover, the Kremlin also “plans to increase the intensity of DDoS (distributed-denial-of-service) attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine's closest allies, primarily Poland and the Baltic states,” Ukraine’s military intelligence said, as cited by the Ukrinform news agency.
DDoS attack
According to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), “A denial-of-service (DoS) attack occurs when legitimate users are unable to access information systems, devices, or other network resources due to the actions of a malicious cyber threat actor. Services affected may include email, websites, online accounts (e.g., banking), or other services that rely on the affected computer or network.”
Meanwhile, “A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack occurs when multiple machines are operating together to attack one target,“ CISA notes.
The agency adds: “DDoS attackers often leverage the use of a botnet—a group of hijacked internet-connected devices to carry out large scale attacks.”
Monday is day 215 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, pravda.com.ua, ukrinform.net, cisa.gov