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Radio News: Report outlines Russia's hack attacks against Ukraine
Dan Goddin reports for Ars Technica about a report published April 27 by Microsoft that says Russian hackers in six groups have launched no fewer than 237 operations in concert with the country's physical attacks on Ukraine. “As today’s report details, Russia’s use of cyberattacks appears to be strongly correlated and sometimes directly timed with its kinetic military operations targeting services and institutions crucial for civilians,” Tom Burt, Microsoft corporate vice president for customer security, wrote. Almost 40 of the hacking incidents targeted hundreds of systems using wiper malware, which deletes essential files stored on hard drives so the machines can’t boot. The wiper malware dubbed WhisperGate was used against Ukrainian government and IT sector networks in January before the invasion. Then there were DDoS attacks against Ukrainian financial institutions in February. There was another coordinated attack on February 23, the day before the invasion. On March 2 Russian hackers attacked the network of a Ukrainian nuclear power company. The report suggested Ukrainian computer users could turn on a feature called controlled folders designed to protect data in specific folders from destruction from ransomware, wipers, and other types of destructive malware. Read more about this story at Ars Technica.