Cyber Attack On Ukraine Shoots Up By 196%: Check Point Research

NEW DELHI: Cyberattacks on Ukrainian government sites and the military sector climbed by 196 per cent in the first three days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while attacks on Russian enterprises increased by only 4 per cent. The new research was made public by Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Research (CRP) on Monday.

On the Ukrainian government and military sector, CPR documented a 196% increase in cyber attacks in the first three days of combat, compared to the early days of February 2022. The same sector globally and in Russia did not show a similar increase.

In the past few days, CPR documented a 4% increase in cyber attacks per organization within Russia, compared to the same days in the previous week. On Ukraine, the overall amount of cyber attacks per organization increased by .2%. Other regions across the world experienced a net decrease in cyber attacks per organization.

ALSO READ: Amid The Russia-Ukraine War, Moscow Attempts To Control Online News Narrative On Social Media

Check Point’s research group also observes a significant increase in malicious phishing emails written in East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian) since last Thursday, when the Russian onslaught began, compared to earlier this month’s statistics.

CPR witnessed a significant 7-fold increase in malicious phishing emails in the East Slavic languages (Russia/Ukrainian letters). The chart below depicts the percentage of such emails out of all malicious emails sent per week in the past 5 weeks:

According to the experts, the majority of phishing emails are sent to Russian recipients using legitimate or counterfeit Ukrainian email accounts.

The researchers also warn of a rise in scam emails soliciting donations for Ukraine in an attempt to trick consumers into donating money to bogus accounts.

ALSO READ: Russia-Ukraine War: Anonymous Hackers Declare War Against Putin And Russia In Cyber World

Safety Tips for People Looking to Donate to Ukraine:

1. Spot Fake Domains

One of the most common techniques used in phishing emails are lookalike or fake domains. Lookalike domains are designed to appear to be a legitimate or trusted domain to a casual glance.
For example, instead of the email address manager@company.com, a phishing email may use manager@cornpany.com or boss@compаny.com. 

Phishers may also use fake but plausible domains in their attacks.

• Be wary of Unusual Attachments

A common goal of phishing emails is to trick the recipient into downloading and running attached malware on their computer. For this to work, the email needs to carry a file that is capable of running executable code. As a result, phishing emails may have unusual or suspicious attachments. For example, a supposed invoice may be a ZIP file or an attached Microsoft Office document may
require macros to be enabled to view content. If this is the case, it is probable that the email and its attachments are malicious.

• Look out for Incorrect Grammar or Tone

Often, phishing emails are not written by people fluent in the language. This means that these emails can contain grammatical errors or simply sound wrong.
Real emails from a legitimate organization are unlikely to have these mistakes, so they should be a warning sign of a potential phishing attack.

Phishing emails are designed to convince the recipient to do something that is not in their best interests (giving away sensitive information, installing malware, etc.).
To accomplish this, phishers commonly use psychological tricks in their campaigns, such as:

• Sense of Urgency: Phishing emails commonly tell their recipients that something needs to be done right away. This is because someone in a hurry is less likely to think about whether the email looks suspicious or is legitimate.
• Use of Authority: Business email compromise (BEC) scams and other spear-phishing emails commonly pretend to be from the CEO or other high rand authorized personal. These scams take advantage of the fact that the recipient is inclined to follow orders from authorities, whomever they might be.

• Beware of Suspicious Requests

Phishing emails are designed to steal money, credentials, or other sensitive information. If an email makes a request or a demand that seems unusual or suspicious, then this might be evidence that it is part of a phishing attack.

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