Ukraine Secret Service Arrests Hacker Helping Russian Invaders

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it has detained a
“hacker” who offered technical assistance to the invading Russian
troops by providing mobile communication services inside the
Ukrainian territory.

The anonymous suspect is said to have broadcasted text messages
to Ukrainian officials, including security officers and civil
servants, proposing that they surrender and take the side of
Russia. The individual has also been accused of routing phone calls
from Russia to the mobile phones of Russian troops in Ukraine.

“Up to a thousand calls were made through this hacker in one
day. Many of them are from the top leadership of the enemy army,”
the SBU alleged^[1], adding it confiscated
the equipment that was used to pull off the operation.

Besides implicating the hacker for helping Russia make anonymous
phone calls to its military forces based in Ukraine, the agency
said the hacker passed commands and instructions to different
groups of “Russian invaders.”

“He will be held accountable for all the severity of the law.
Because on it is the blood of tens or even hundreds of killed
Ukrainians,” read the translation of the announcement.

News of the detainment comes as a third strain of data-wiping
malware dubbed “CaddyWiper^[2]” has been observed in attacks^[3]
against several dozen systems in a limited number of organizations
in Ukraine, close on the heels of HermeticWiper^[4]
and IsaacWiper^[5]
coinciding with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month.

In a separate incident, Reuters last week reported^[6]
of a cyber attack that disrupted broadband satellite internet
access in Ukraine on February 24 between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. EET,
right around the time Russia commenced its full-scale invasion of
the country. The digital sabotage crippled^[7]
satellite modems that are part of Viasat’s KA-SAT network.