‘Red lines’ The IT Army of Ukraine said it has some “red lines,” insisting it does not attack humanitarian or health services.But it sees financial sectors as legitimate targets, even if attacks affect civilians.”Cyber war is a war against the economy,” a spokesman for the group who uses the pseudonym Ted, told AFP.Ted sees his work on par with massive Western sanctions on Russia.He conceded there should be stricter rules in cyberwarfare, but added: “Let’s be frank, what punishment can we impose on Russia for not following the rules? Nothing.”The IT Army of Ukraine has boasted of disrupting life in Russia.It claims to have blocked payment services in Russia before the New Year, causing economic losses, and to have paralysed some Russian airports last October.They typically use distributed-denial-of-service (DDos) attacks — a relatively simple tactic that aims to bring down IT systems by overloading them with masses of network requests. ‘Extra hands’ Other cyberwarfare groups have said they are more focused on collecting confidential information.One of them, the Cyber Regiment which is made up of around 50 people, said it helped Ukrainian forces to localise and “destroy” dozens of Russian units.AFP was not able to verify these claims.Sergii Laba and Mikhail Kunynets, Cyber Regiment’s co-founders, insisted they do not take “orders” from authorities.But they admitted to helping with requests from security services.”After all, we have the same goal,” said Laba.He said the cyber volunteers serve as “extra hands” for the security services, which face a far larger enemy.Nikita Knysh, of the “Hackyourmom” group, describes a similar relationship.”Do they pay me? No. Do I send them information? Yes,” he said.He said he was employed by Ukraine’s SBU security service before Russia invaded.”If you can hack, they will always want to use your services,” he said.
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