The February attack rattled Pentagon officials and private industry because it revealed new vulnerabilities in global communications systems.
A cyberattack that took down satellite communications in Ukraine in the hours before the Feb.24 invasion was the work of the Russian government, the United States and European nations declared on Tuesday, officially fixing the blame for an attack that rattled Pentagon officials and private industry because it revealed new vulnerabilities in global communications systems. In a coordinated set of statements, the governments blamed Moscow but did not explicitly name the organization that conducted the sophisticated effort to black out Ukrainian communications. But American officials, speaking on condition of anonymity about the specifics of the findings, said that it was the Russian military intelligence agency, the G.R.U. — the same group responsible for the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee and a range of attacks on the U.S. and Ukraine. “This unacceptable cyberattack is yet another example of Russia’s continued pattern of irresponsible behavior in cyberspace, which also formed an integral part of its illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine,” Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s top diplomat, said in a statement. “Cyberattacks targeting Ukraine, including against critical infrastructure, could spill over into other countries and cause systemic effects putting the security of Europe’s citizens at risk.” The attack was focused on a system run by Viasat, a California company that provides high-speed satellite communication services — and was used heavily by the Ukrainian government. The attack came a few weeks after some Ukrainian government websites were hit with “wiper” software that destroys data. The Viasat attack appeared intended to disrupt Ukraine’s command and control of its troops during the critical first hours of Russia’s invasion, American and European officials said. The hack also disconnected thousands of civilians in Ukraine and across Europe from the internet. It even thwarted the operation of thousands of wind turbines in Germany that relied on Viasat’s technology for monitoring conditions and controlling the turbine network. Viasat immediately launched an investigation and called in Mandiant, the cybersecurity firm, to write a report. While Viasat published initial conclusions in March, the deeper studies have not been made public. Nonetheless, those initial conclusions were striking: To black out the space-based satellites, the hackers never had to attack the satellites themselves.
