"They can torture, they can kill this person": Volunteers patrol Ukraine's cyber front during war
Anastasiia Voitova shelters away from home during the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Image: Anastasiia Voitova
BY KERRY TOMLINSON, AMPERE NEWS
July 21, 2022
There are lives on the line.
Volunteers are working to protect Ukraine from cyberattacks and cyber spying during the Russian invasion. They know their work could save people from torture and death.
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Second Front
Russian bomb attacks have taken dozens of lives just in the last few weeks.
Twenty-five dead in Vinnytsia on July 14, including a four-year-old girl. Forty-eight killed in Chasiv Yar on July 9. Twenty more at a mall in Kremenchuk on June 27.
As rescuers search for bodies and haul away wreckage, others in Ukraine are patrolling a different zone of combat: the cyber world.
"This war is very digital," said Anastasiia Voitova, security software engineer at Cossack Labs in Kyiv.
Digital War
After the invasion began, Voitova sheltered in a mountain village, volunteering to protect the country's digital resources.
For one, Ukraine deployed a messaging channel so people could send in pictures and info about Russian troop movement.
But someone has to secure it, making sure no info can leak out, and any pictures --- once sent --- disappear from phones without a trace.
"We're talking about people's lives. Because if someone will send a picture of Russian tank, and then this picture will appear on their phone, right?" she said to Ampere News. "They search for phones, they search in the phones, and they can find this picture. They can torture, they can kill this person."
How do you prevent that when creating this messaging channel?
"It requires additional effort," Voitova said. "It doesn't happen magically. Developers need to code this thing and security engineers need to make sure that yes, we indeed use strong encryption."
She and others help for free, trying to protect sites and apps for refugees, humanitarian aide, and more.
Digital Life
So much is digital in Ukraine. People can hold their passports and driver's licenses on their phones, use government apps to access emergency war funds, and sign up for air raid siren alerts.
At the same time, people's locations and identities are even more sensitive than ever.
"I am trying to inspire my colleagues not to be depressed and to continue doing things because, again, we have these special skills and we can use them," she said.
Practicing for War
Russia has carried out cyberattacks on Ukraine for years.
One of the first big hacks in 2015 shut down power for almost a quarter million people during winter. It was a hack heard round the world, showing how cyber attackers could cause chaos in crucial industrial machines.
Sergey Khariuk investigated that attack, analyzing the malware called BlackEnergy that Russia used in the blackout. Khariuk, offensive security lead at Divoro and co-founder of Cyberlands.io in Kyiv, said he thought Russia was practicing for war.
Now he's volunteering to fend off more Russian cyberattacks during the war, spending as many as forty hours a week above and beyond his full time job.
But Russia has actually helped the country prepare, he said, by pummeling Ukraine with digital attacks. Not just in 2015, but many more in the years that followed, wreaking havoc on government, banks and critical infrastructure.
"This attack and all other attacks which we saw in Ukraine," Khariuk said to Ampere News, "all of them, helped us to improve our cybersecurity defense services."
"We can't help our country on the battlefield, on the physical battlefield. So we decided to help our country on cyber battlefield," he said.
Learning from Attacks
Russia tried to shut down power again in Ukraine with a cyberattack in April this year, but failed. Two million people would have lost electricity services. But Ukrainian cybersecurity officials said they managed to discover and stop the hack.
"We always have to be grateful to our enemies, you know, who make us stronger," said Marina Krotofil, senior technical advisor for critical infrastructure protection at ISSP. She is Ukrainian, but currently based in Switzerland.
Krotofil also volunteers day and night, trying keep attackers out of Ukraine's sensitive data and critical equipment, and other efforts to help Ukrainians during the war.
Priority: Communications
Phone and Internet services must be protected, she said, for many reasons, but also because they are a lifeline.
"It would be a lot of havoc if people would not have information and would not know where to move, why to move, what to expect," she said.
Luckily, she said, Russia needs phone and Internet to wage war, so they're not wiping out all telecommunications, allowing Ukrainians to stay in contact.
"People feel anxiety without information. It really can cause panic," Krotofil said. "So people would prefer to have information, Internet, rather than food. Because without food, if you have information, you're mentally much stronger, and you can survive the discomfort of being hungry."
Weight of War
The long hours and the unbearable oppression of war take their toll. There is always more work to do, yet each day brings new pain, suffering and death.
How do they keep themselves going?
"I just don't have another choice," said Anastasiia. "Look at me, if I will be killed by Russian missile, that will be pretty easy death. But if I will appear on this occupied territory, again, looking on the pictures in from Bucha, hearing all the stories, I will probably be tortured and raped, and tortured again and raped again, and then, if I'm lucky, killed. And I don't want that, okay? So, I really, really don't want that."
"And it's why I'm putting in all my time and effort to avoid this situation, not only for me personally, but to as much people as I can," she added.
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