Ukrainian hacktivists fight back against Russia as cyber conflict deepens

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."But in those first days, Laba, who studied computer science, logged into his local community channel where students were advertising the possibility of using their skills in cyber "to give some impact or to help the country, to help the military, to help the government," he recalled during a Zoom interview with NPR. "And that's how it all began."

Laba is one of the co-founders, along with Mykhailo Kunynets, of Cyber Regiment, one of perhaps dozens of Ukrainian volunteer cyber "hacktivist" organizations that have sprung up and evolved since Russia invaded.

At first these groups appeared disorganized and were outwardly dismissed. They largely ran unsophisticated denial of service operations, flooding Russian targets with traffic to temporarily take them offline.

However, they appear to have stepped up their operations in recent months, launching more sophisticated hack and leak campaigns, open source intelligence operations, and other disruptive campaigns. Additionally, they appear to have more coordination with the Ukrainian government. It's difficult to measure their true effectiveness. But now, their work might have more impact on the war — if not on the outcome — with helping to gather intelligence and to disrupt and disturb Russian targets, many of which Ukrainian officials direct them toward."...