Europe's First 3D-Printed School Takes Shape in Ukraine

 Europe's First 3D-Printed School Takes Shape in Ukraine

Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty (Czech Republic)

May 25, 2023

Humanitarian group Team4UA organized the building of Europe's first three-dimensionally (3D)-printed primary school in the western Ukraine city Lviv, using technology from Danish 3D-printing construction company COBOD International. The school will combine 3D-printed spaces and manually built sections. Project organizers said one goal is to import several 3D printers and to incorporate the rubble of destroyed buildings into the concrete mix for the school. They hope the school becomes a template for building similar facilities across Ukraine as part of the massive reconstruction effort. The 3D-printed section of the school is scheduled to be completed by early June.  ... ' 

Security in Cyberspace

Considerable piece in Fraunhofer mag,  intro below

More security in cyberspace

Web special Fraunhofer magazine 2.2022

The invasion of Ukraine shows that fighting is no longer just on the battlefield, but also in virtual space - with highly professional hacker attacks and targeted disinformation. How can Germany become more defensive?

Months before Putin gave his troops the marching orders, the war on the Internet began. Hackers have been preparing the Russian invasion since at least December of last year. This is the conclusion of Prof. Haya Shulman, who studied the cyber attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. Shulman heads the "Cybersecurity Analytics and Defences" department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology SIT in Darmstadt, coordinates the "Analytics Based Cybersecurity" research area at the National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity ATHENE and holds a chair at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.

One of their findings: The malware that caused the systems of the communications satellite KA-SAT to fail on the day Russia invaded Ukraine was smuggled in months ago. KA-SAT provides broadband internet to customers across Europe and is used by the Ukrainian Army for emergency communications. »The goal of the hackers was to stop the communication – and they succeeded.

It took a month for the damage to be repaired, at least for the most part,” says Shulman. The Russian attack on KA-SAT was also not without consequences in Germany and all of Central Europe: 5,800 wind turbines could no longer be maintained and controlled remotely. Systems in remote locations that are connected to the Internet via a satellite connection were affected. They continued to supply electricity. However, technical problems could only be identified and rectified on site.  ...... ' 

Weaponizing Starlink?

 At what point is something directly weaponized?  In support of military activity?

SpaceX curbed Ukraine's use of Starlink internet for drones -company president  By Joey Roulette  in Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine's military from using the company's Starlink satellite internet service for controlling drones in the region during the country's war with Russia, SpaceX's president said Wednesday.

SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, which has provided Ukraine's military with broadband communications in its defense against Russia's military, was "never never meant to be weaponized," Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, said during a conference in Washington, D.C.

"However, Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement," she said.  ... 

Ukraine's Wounded Soldiers to Get Bionic Arms

Three dimensionally printed,  use of sensors, 

Ukraine's Wounded Soldiers to Get Bionic Arms

London Daily Express (U.K.)

Jacob Paul, January 18, 2023

U.K. technology company Open Bionics plans to fit two Ukrainian soldiers with three-dimensionally-printed bionic prostheses to replace hands lost to explosive injuries. In addition to providing custom-made Hero Arms to soldiers Andrii Gidzun and Vitalii Ivashchuk next month, the Open Bionics team has provided clinical training to three Ukrainian doctors. Open Bionics' Joel Gibbard explained the company designed the robotic hand, which can grasp objects with movable digits, using sensors triggered by muscles in the wearer's forearm "for activities of daily living. We're aiming for it to be able to hold objects of different sizes, to pick things up, hold a cup of coffee, tie shoelaces, brush teeth — these are the kind of things that we focused on in the design."  ... 

Ukraine Has Digitized Its Fighting Forces on a Shoestring

Ukraine Has Digitized Its Fighting Forces on a Shoestring   By The Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2023

Ukrainian troops operated a telescopic tower with a remote camera on a Soviet car that was recast to observe and correct fire on the front line near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Christmas Day.

Ukraine has digitally networked its fighting forces, intelligence, and weapons on the cheap through satellite communications and custom software.

Veterans of U.S. and allied digitization projects see Ukraine's patchwork command-and-control system as embodying the need to experiment and involve nonmilitary experts.

Ukraine's domestic technology-outsourcing industry and hacker community have proven invaluable by repurposing commercial technologies for the insurgency.

Examples include consumer drones modified to drop grenades, software to automate payroll on the front lines, and real-time battlefield intelligence relayed to local commanders from drones and spotters.

Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said on Twitter last week, “The enemy has been preparing for full-fledged [technology] war for 20 years. We made a technological leap in 10 months.”

From The Wall Street Journal   

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Russia Is Jamming More GPS Satellite Signals

Use of Jamming versus Sat Signals, GPS

Russia Is Jamming More GPS Satellite Signals Around Moscow

By New Scientist, December 27, 2022

Map of GPS Interference near Moscow for 26 December 2022.

Credit: GPSJam

Russia has accelerated its jamming of global positioning system (GPS) satellites around Moscow, apparently to deter long-range strikes by Ukrainian drones, according to the GPSJam monitoring website.

The ramp-up followed drone strikes on two Russian airbases earlier this month, says Dana Goward at the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, Alexandria, VA. Russia has jammed satellite navigation following drone strikes before, and it has various military mobile jamming systems that broadcast radio noise to disrupt weak signals. Operators directly pilot short-range drones, making GPS use unnecessary. However, long-range strikes generally need GPS to navigate, so jamming would thwart remotely orchestrated strikes.

Jamming won’t protect against all drones, however. Shahad-136 drones, for example, which Russia has used against Ukraine, are equipped with navigation units that allow them to pass through areas of jamming.

From New Scientist   View Full Article

NSA cyber chief says Ukraine war is compelling more intelligence sharing with industry

 Cybersecurity as it evolves under global conditions. 

NSA cyber chief says Ukraine war is compelling more intelligence sharing with industry

NSA Cybersecurity Directorate Director Rob Joyce spoke Wednesday at the Trellix Cybersecurity Summit. (Pixelme Studios).

Written by AJ Vicens  OCT 19, 2022 | CYBERSCOOP

Rapidly and proactively sharing intelligence on cyberthreats with industry and critical infrastructure providers “can really make a big and decisive difference,” Rob Joyce, director of the NSA Cybersecurity Directorate, said Wednesday.

It’s one of the key lessons his agency “took away personally” from the ongoing war in Ukraine, Joyce said at the Trellix Cybersecurity Summit in Washington.

“Over time, I’ve changed my view about what it is to protect sources and methods,” Joyce said, noting that in his 30-plus years at NSA “it’s in our DNA” to protect sources and methods to ensure the ability to “know secrets into the future.”

But “what we know is often not sensitive, it is how we know it,” Joyce said. “We can make available the insights about what we know without putting at risk how we know it. That’s really an inflection point that lets us get to more prolific, more extensive and more closely sharing for operational outcomes.”

Joyce added that “it doesn’t do anybody any good if we know a thing and don’t do something. Doing is really the focus in the cybersecurity area. And if you’ve got secrets and understanding and you don’t operationalize those, they don’t count.”

Joyce pointed to what he called the “maturation” of the NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center as the venue for “working with industry to operationalize those ideas.” Information is shared with technology providers, major infrastructure providers and others, “who can then take action at scale.”

A recent example of such information sharing came earlier this month when the NSA, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a joint advisory warning of state-aligned hackers using Impacket, an open-source toolkit to aid in network compromise, and a custom data exfiltration tool known as CovalentStealer against an unnamed defense industrial base entity.

More broadly, the U.S. government has been more aggressive about sharing intelligence about Russian plans, both in the days before the Feb. 24 invasion and since, as part of an effort to disrupt Russian attacks on Ukraine.

“When we set up that protection, protecting us protects you,” he said.  .... ' 

AI Supports Displaced Peoples, Refugees in Ukraine and Beyond

Impressive depth of applications.  Good examples to consider for the future. 

AI Supports Displaced Peoples, Refugees in Ukraine and Beyond

By Karen Emslie

Commissioned by CACM Staff, September 15, 2022

The United Nations (U.N.) reported in May there were around 7.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine, people who have been forced to leave their homes but who remain in the country. Meanwhile, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency) recorded over 5.9 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled their country to locations across Europe.

The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is part of a global situation in which over 89 million people worldwide were found to be "forcibly displaced" due to persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations at the end of 2021, according to UNHCR.

Displaced peoples and refugees face a multitude of difficulties, from poor living conditions and loss of identity documents to longer-term resettlement, discrimination, and employability issues. Researchers and technology companies have been working with relief organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and governments to develop solutions, some of which are based upon artificial intelligence (AI), to support IDPs and refugees worldwide.

Ukraine: Responding to the immediate crisis

Palo Alto, CA-based Orbital Insight is using AI and geospatial data to monitor the movements of displaced peoples and refugees in Ukraine. The observations support agencies involved in the relief effort— including the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAid)—to deploy aid and emergency resources where and when they are needed.

Orbital Insight operates a cloud-based platform that uses data including vehicle,  foot-traffic, and land-use observations to provide insights on global economic, societal, and environmental trends. Its clients typically come from sectors like defense and intelligence, energy, and financial services.

The platform's raw data is obtained from multiple sources. It includes high-resolution electro-optical (EO) satellite imagery (which includes information from beyond the visible spectrum) supplied by satellite manufacturer and operator Satellogic, as well as data from connected vehicle sensors and anonymized geolocation sensors on mobile devices. Customized algorithms are used to analyze the data and perform specific tasks, like computer vision-based classification and object detection.

When war broke out in Ukraine, Orbital Insight CEO Kevin O'Brien and his team adapted the platform's capabilities to the conflict. Foot-traffic algorithms, for example, can track the volume, direction, and speed of displaced peoples' movements. The company's analysis showed how foot traffic dropped off dramatically in eastern Ukraine as people fled intense fighting in the region—  and how it then grew in cities in the west of the country as displaced peoples moved to those safer areas.

Such insights support humanitarian organizations' decision-making, such as whether emergency shelters and food should be redeployed to areas that people are moving towards. "Some of the first use-cases were to help manage relief resources both in Ukraine and at border locations," explained O'Brien. "The next was safe exit, safe passage: how do you get people further away from the fighting?"

Satellite imagery gives an aerial view of the situation at borders as refugees cross into neighboring countries like Poland and Moldova. Computer vision provides further insights by automatically counting the number of vehicles at border crossings. The results can be downloaded as geoJSON files, loaded onto a Geographic Information System (GIS), and visualized on maps for further analysis by relief organizations.

Alongside contracts with governmental agencies, Orbital Insight donates analytics via the Data Partnership, a collaborative platform that allows tech companies to share data with international development organizations for research and humanitarian purposes. The company also works directly with partners in Ukraine, including with Reface, a Kyiv-based AI startup that developed a popular face-swapping app and content creation platform. Reface has redirected its focus towards the conflict via numerous initiatives, including developing algorithms to identify Russian troops in satellite imagery and using data to fight disinformation.  ...   (more detail) 

Karen Emslie is a location-independent freelance journalist and essayist. 

Russian official says civilian satellites may be military target

Obvious, chilling .... The clear future of warfare

Russian official says civilian satellites may be “legitimate” military target

Russia wasn't happy about Starlink providing broadband in Ukraine after invasion.

JON BRODKIN - 9/16/2022   ArsTechnica

A Russian diplomat said civilian satellites could be legitimate military targets in a statement that seems to refer to Starlink providing broadband access in Ukraine. Civilian satellites "may become a legitimate target for retaliation," the Russian official said in a statement to the United Nations' open-ended working group on reducing space threats.

The quote is from an unofficial English translation of the statement on September 12 by Konstantin Vorontsov, head of the Russian delegation to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) working group. The translation is provided with other countries' statements from the session on the UNODA's meeting website.... '

Navigating Inflation

From McKinsey, fairly obvious, but more detail:

How to navigate rising energy costs and inflation

Some consumers may consider pressing the brakes on their road trips this summer as gas prices continue to skyrocket. In the United States, gas prices jumped nearly 50 percent year-over-year, driving up energy prices 34.6 percent. The war in Ukraine and supply chain effects have only exacerbated price pressures. ... ' 

IBM Begins Laying Off Entire Russian Workforce

 Implications for IBM and Ukraine?

IBM Begins Laying Off Entire Russian Workforce   By Josh Norem  in Extremetech

The ongoing war in Ukraine has caused hundreds of companies to announce they were suspending operations in Russia. Some companies have even decided to pull out completely. Such is the case with IBM, which announced this week it has begun the process of laying off all of its Russian employees. The layoffs come in the wake of the company’s March 7th announcement that it was suspending operations there. As of press time, the company’s Russian website was already offline.  .... ' 

3D Printing in War

New uses for 3D Printing continue to surprise me

Ukrainian Volunteers Use 3D Printers to Save Lives They churn out bandages and periscopes for fighters on the frontlines manufactured and supplied a number of 3D-printed products to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Territorial Defense Force, and the Air Forces. For security reasons, this group does not disclose most of their work. But they do share common achievements.

One month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a group of more than 100 makers from all over Ukraine manufactured and supplied a number of 3D-printed products to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Territorial Defense Force, and the Air Forces. For security reasons, this group does not disclose most of their work. But they do share common achievements.

According to their data, 3,019 individual parts were 3D printed in the first 16 days of the war, which were used for 930 finished products. This is data from only one group of volunteers, and it is very difficult to track the total amount of help in the form of 3D-printed products. However, it is safe to say that fast, flexible 3D-printing production has shown all its advantages in Ukraine.

This is a startling accomplishment considering that before 24 February 2022, 3D printing was very rarely used in manufacturing components for military equipment in Ukraine..... '

Use of VPNs to Change Borders?

 Considering the use of a VPN to border the web?

ACM NEWS

How Millions of Russians are Tearing Holes in the Digital Iron Curtain   By The Washington Post, May 6, 2022

When Russian authorities blocked hundreds of Internet sites in March, Konstantin decided to act. The 52-year-old company manager in Moscow tore a hole in the Digital Iron Curtain, which had been erected to control the narrative of the Ukraine war, with a tool that lets him surf blocked sites and eyeball taboo news.

Konstantin turned to a virtual private network, an encrypted digital tunnel more commonly known as a VPN. Since the war began in February, VPNs have been downloaded in Russia by the hundreds of thousands a day — a massive surge in demand that represents a direct challenge to President Vladimir Putin's attempt to seal Russians off from the wider world. By protecting the locations and identities of users, VPNs are now granting millions of Russians access to blocked material.

Downloading one in his Moscow apartment, Konstantin said, brought back memories of the 1980s in the Soviet Union — when he used a shortwave radio to hear forbidden news of dissident arrests on U.S.-funded Radio Liberty.

From The Washington Post

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Net-zero Transition in the Wake of the War in Ukraine

 Ultimate meaning in how much time and integrated level of risks?

The net-zero transition in the wake of the war in Ukraine: A detour, a derailment, or a different path?

May 19, 2022 | Article  McKinsey   By Hamid Samandari, Dickon Pinner, Harry Bowcott, and Olivia White

The Russian invasion of Ukraine1 has ushered in a humanitarian crisis of a scale not seen on European soil since the Second World War, a level of geopolitical tension not experienced since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a set of rapidly evolving political, economic, and societal responses and counterresponses whose ramifications can scarcely be estimated at this point. Nor are there signs of an imminent resolution on the horizon.

As Russia is one of the world’s largest producers of oil, gas, and commodities, one can naturally expect that the massive and universal effort required to address the world’s looming climate crisis would also be swept up in the maelstrom. This raises the question of whether the war and its aftermath will prove to be a limited detour from the previous path of net-zero transition, or a true fork in the road and a far more consequential redirection.

It seems clear at this point the war will complicate the transition’s path in the short term. In the longer term, however, the logic of energy security and economics could converge to kick net-zero transition efforts into higher gear. Bold moves would be needed at unprecedented speed to boost energy-efficiency measures and adopt renewable-energy alternatives to fossil fuels. If adopted, such actions could drive net-zero technologies down their respective cost curves and build a pathway to faster decarbonization in other regions.

Such outcomes would not be surprising in light of history; conflict has often accelerated energy transitions. The 19th century’s naval wars accelerated a shift from wind- to coal-powered vessels. World War I brought about a shift from coal to oil. World War II introduced nuclear energy as a major power source. In each of these cases, wartime innovations flowed directly to the civilian economy and ushered in a new era.2 The war in Ukraine is different in that it is not prompting the energy innovation itself but making the need for it clearer. Still, the potential impact could be equally transformative.  ... ' 

Emerging Drone uses in War

Cheaper and increasingly autonomous, they will be in our  future.  For war and for humanitarian aiding  in its aftermath. 

The Drones of War

By Esther Shein, Commissioned by CACM Staff, May 10, 2022

North American professional drone maker Draganfly has sent the first of nearly a dozen humanitarian drones to the non-profit Ukraine organization Revived Soldiers Ukraine (RSU) in Europe, to be used to deliver insulin to hard-to-reach hospitals in the war-torn country.

RSU has ordered 200 medical response drones from Draganfly, each costing $30,000 and equipped with temperature-managed payload boxes that can transport up to 35 pounds of blood, pharmaceuticals, insulin/medicines, vaccines, and wound care kits, the drone maker said. Because insulin is a temperature-sensitive product, quick and safe transportation is a top priority.

There are roughly 2.3 million people living with diabetes in Ukraine, according to the International Diabetes Association, many of whom have Type 1 diabetes and require multiple daily injections of insulin to survive. For those living in high-conflict areas of the country, access to life-saving insulin is limited or non-existent.

Draganfly's drones are equipped with temperature-managed payload boxes that can transport blood, pharmaceuticals, insulin/medicines, vaccines, water, and wound care kits. 

Also aiding in the delivery of medical supplies in Ukraine is Coldchain Delivery Systems, a Spring Branch, TX-based company that provides logistics services and connected RSU with Draganfly to deliver the medical equipment to people in besieged areas.

Because Draganfly's drones are equipped with thermal cameras, they can "look through debris to see if there are heat signatures, meaning a warm body,'' according to CEO Cameron Chell.

So far, RSU has purchased 10 drones and Draganfly has donated three, he said. There are three types of Draganfly drones being sent to Europe, ranging in price from $7,500 to $30,000, Chell said.

Other organizations have reached out to offer to provide insulin and other medical suppies, and "We're going to work with Revived Soldiers Ukraine and help them continue to do what it takes to accept donations and let people be involved,'' he said. "I suspect it will become a long-term thing for us."

After seeing how Draganfly's advanced drones were being used to deliver temperature-sensitive medical supplies and to assist search-and-rescue operations, "We knew they would be invaluable to our crews on the ground,'' said RSU president Iryna Vashchuk Discipio. She added that Draganfly is providing its drones at cost. ... ' 

UK Blames Russia For Satellite Hack

In the BBC, more examples of tech warfare and implications.

UK blames Russia for satellite internet hack at start of war   By Chris Vallance,  BBCTechnology Reporter

Russia was behind a cyber-attack targeting American commercial satellite internet company Viasat, UK and US intelligence suggests. The attack began about an hour before Russia invaded Ukraine, on 24 February.

It caused outages for several thousand Ukrainian customers - and affected windfarms and internet users in Central Europe. Officials have long believed Russia was to blame but lacked the evidence to say so publicly. Viasat provides high-speed satellite broadband to commercial and military customers.

The company has previously said "tens of thousands of terminals" were damaged beyond repair, in the cyber-attack, though its core network infrastructure and the satellite itself remained unscathed.  .... ' 

Ukraine Sounds Alarm on Chinese Drones

China Drones in play? 

 Ukraine Sounds Alarm on Chinese Drones, Opening Skies to U.S. Startups

The Wall Street Journal,  Heather Somerville,   April 22, 2022

Hundreds of small drones from U.S. startups are searching for survivors and Russian hideouts in Ukraine, after Ukrainian government officials cited Chinese drones as a security risk. The Ukraine officials have called for limits on the deployment of drones made by China's SZ DJI Technology, saying technical glitches may have been intentionally inserted into the drones to undermine the country's defense. Since last month, Seattle-based BRINC Drones has contributed 10 drones to Ukraine and sold roughly 50 more to bolster Ukrainian defense, as well as for search-and-rescue and intelligence-gathering missions. Skydio's Adam Bry said his company gave dozens of drones to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, and sold hundreds more to Ukraine-supporting government and non-government entities.... ' 

Ukraine Preserving Digital Culture

 Volunteers Scramble to Preserve Ukraine's Digital Culture

in IEEE Spectrum, Tekla S. Perry, April 6, 2022

More than 1,300 volunteers are working to preserve Ukraine's digital culture before the servers and personal computers used by museums, dance companies, libraries, music collections, and other organizations to store websites, videos, and images can be destroyed. Tufts University's Anna Kijas put out a call on Twitter in late February for volunteers to take part in a data-rescue event to save Ukrainian websites. The volunteers joined forces to offer cloud storage and other technical assistance. In a matter of days, the first volunteers had created tutorials and a website and rolled out the Saving Ukrainian Heritage Online (SUCHO) project, which so far has preserved over 10 terabytes of data, including nearly 15,000 images and PDFs and parts of over 3,000 websites.  ... ' 

RiskIQ Looks at sites Targeting Ukraine

 Examining targeted Threat Intelligence

RiskIQ Threat Intelligence Roundup: Trickbot, Magecart, and More Fake Sites Targeting Ukraine 

APRIL 07, 2022,     BY TEAM RISKIQ

Threat intelligence is more crucial than ever to attack surface management and cyber resilience in today's volatile threat landscape. RiskIQ continues to leverage our global telemetry to develop relevant, actionable intelligence that gives security teams line-of-sight to attackers and threat systems and infrastructure.

This week's roundup again builds on powerful research published by the cybersecurity community about cyberattacks against Ukrainian citizens, refugees, and armed forces, including fraudulent sites attempting to fool people that want to donate money. It also breaks down new research in collaboration with the Microsoft Defender for IoT Section 52 research team about Trickbot malware targeting Mikrotik routers, updates with Magecart, and additional insight into nation-state activity targeting Chinese casinos.

What's New in C2

Trickbot Abuse of Compromised MikroTik Routers for Command and Control: In collaboration with Section 52, RiskIQ researchers investigated MikroTik routers acting as reverse proxies for Trickbot command and control (C2). Section 52's article details how threat actors compromise MikroTik devices and configure them to work as C2 reverse-proxies for Trickbot malware. We analyzed examples of compromised MikroTik routers in RiskIQ data and document indicators that can help identify devices under threat actor control.

Based on new findings, indicators surfaced by Section 52, and previous third-party research, RiskIQ created detection logic that enables our systems to flag compromised MikroTik routers working as communication channels for Trickbot C2. Be sure to read more about our findings and access the more than 70 new indicators in our Threat Intelligence Portal (TIP).

Recent Magecart-Injected URLs and C2 Domains: Today, digital credit skimming malware like Magecart affects hundreds of e-commerce sites and shouldn't be overlooked. February saw a wave of attacks, which showed "low-hanging fruit" is still available for these actors, which take advantage of new vulnerabilities and issues with plugins and other third-party code. Between March 15th and 21st, RiskIQ detected 149 Magecart and skimmer-injected URLs and 186 unique C2 domains used by known Magecart operatives.

A Closer Look at Campaigns Targeting Ukraine   (See remainder of article at link) 

Mysterious Cyberhack

Wathching the infrastructure for changes  

Mysterious Satellite Cyberhack       By Wired

March 28, 2022

The attack only impacted fixed broadband customers and didn’t cause disruption to airlines or Viasat’s US government clients, the company says, and no customer data was impacted.

More than 22,000 miles above Earth, the KA-SAT is locked in orbit. Traveling at 7,000 miles per hour, in sync with the planet's rotation, the satellite beams high-speed internet down to people across Europe. Since 2011, it has helped homeowners, businesses, and militaries get online. However, as Russian troops moved into Ukraine during the early hours of February 24, satellite internet connections were disrupted. A mysterious cyberattack against the satellite's ground infrastructure—not the satellite itself—plunged tens of thousands of people into internet darkness.

Among them were parts of Ukraine's defenses. "It was a really huge loss in communications in the very beginning of war," Viktor Zhora, a senior official at Ukraine's cybersecurity agency, the State Services for Special Communication and Information Protection (SSSCIP), reportedly said two weeks later. He did not provide any more details, and SSSCIP did not respond to WIRED's request for comment. But the attack against the satellite internet system, owned by US company Viasat since last year, had even wider ramifications. People using satellite internet connections were knocked offline all across Europe, from Poland to France.

Almost a month after the attack, the disruptions continue. Thousands still remain offline in Europe—around 2,000 wind turbines are still disconnected in Germany—and companies are racing to replace broken modems or fix connections with updates.

From Wired

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