Simon Shuster reports that Bbefore they pulled off one of the most embarrassing cyber heists ever to hit the Kremlin, the hackers from the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, who styled themselves as the online shock troops in Ukraine conflict with Russia, were not really on the radar. They had mostly spent the last two years on easy targets, the computers and cell phones of Russia-backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, who are not known for their discipline when it comes to virus protection or, for that matter, anything else. Every once in a while, the hackers would also deface a Russian website, the cyber equivalent of spray-painting graffiti.
Victor Zhora, the head of Infosafe, one of Ukraine leading cyber security firms, had never met any of these hackers or heard much about them in the local tech community. They just were not doing much, he says, that is, until the past two weeks, during which they posted two troves of emails apparently stolen from the inboxes of Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin former propaganda czar, who is now in charge of Russia shadow war in eastern Ukraine. Among the close aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Surkov is about as tough and consequential a hacking target as they come.
Which is partly why the hack looked so suspicious to Zhora and other cyber experts. Its sophistication seemed well beyond the reach of amateurs, as did its presentation, which featured slickly produced video announcements and textual analysis translated into five languages, including flawless English and, for some reason, Bulgarian. Ukrainian hackers had never pulled off anything close to this level of operation. This clearly involved top-level professionals, Zhora says. And based on the resources that would have been required, he suspects the hackers may have had help from a foreign intelligence service, most likely a Western one....
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