By KYIV. Nov 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – During 2022-2023, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) blocked the activities of 76 bot farms operating on the territory of Ukraine and working on pro-Russian narratives, the Ukrainian intelligence service reported on Monday.
“The enemy regularly tries to undermine the situation in the information space of Ukraine. One of the tools for such influence is through bot farms that spread pro-Russian narratives on the Internet. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, the SBU has already blocked 76 such bot farms with a total capacity of more than 3 million accounts,” head of the SBU Cybersecurity Department Illia Vitiuk said in a commentary for the United24 platform.
According to him, the SBU successfully counters the enemy in cyberspace, regularly repelling massive attacks on government resources, critical infrastructure, and telecommunications companies. In particular, over the 10 months of 2023, the SBU has already neutralized about 4,000 cyberattacks.
At the same time, according to the report, the SBU Cybersecurity Department has information that the Russian Federation is creating a national cyberattack system, introducing relevant subjects into the educational programs of educational institutions in order to attract even students to hacking activities, all this is done under the control of Russian intelligence services.
“This is no longer just about professional intelligence services. We have information that a number of educational institutions are already teaching the subjects of ‘cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure.’ They want to increase the scale of attacks and the number of people who can do this professionally. By the way, they teach how attack not only Ukrainian systems, but also partner countries,” Vitiuk noted.
The report notes that thousands of Russian hackers, including cybercriminals hired in the Russian Federation, are already working against Ukraine. “They are financed by intelligence services, whose research laboratories and institutes help develop means of cyber influence,” the SBU clarifies.
“Their motivation is not hacking for money, but the destruction of our state. And with this approach, other countries will seriously suffer from Russian cyber aggression,” Vitiuk emphasized.
