The Ukrainians, massively aided by the United States, managed to defend themselves against Russian cyberoffensives at the start of the conflict, which began on February 24, 2022, French cyberdefense commander General Aymeric de Bonnemaison said on Thursday.
"
The scoop of this conflict for all cyber commanders today is that the defense can take over the offensive: I manage to contain and reorganize myself
", he argued, returning to the press on the first cyber-lessons learned from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
"Cyber Pearl Harbor didn't happen"
During this war in Ukraine, “
cyber Pearl Harbor did not take place.
But that doesn't mean it can't happen
,” he warned, recalling the case of Costa Rica, paralyzed in 2022 by a series of massive ransomware attacks.
In the case of Ukraine, the Russian cyberoffensive against Kiev did not begin in 2022 but well before, from 2014, the year of the Russian annexation of Crimea, and was accompanied by "
Russian influence maneuvers to stir up public discontent
,” he said.
But "during this period the Ukrainians went upmarket, they allocated budgets to cyber defense and relied on Western partners," he said.
At the start of the war, the Russians hit Ukrainian computer networks “
all over
the place ”: erasing sites, denying access and attacking the Ukrainian government and its leaders “
in order to isolate them
”.
A second wave manages to hit communication routers used by the Ukrainian military, but the network provided by the American SpaceX, "
Starlink, arrived to provide capacity to the troops
", he described.
An effective Ukrainian defense
Opposite the Russians "
there was a very good defense, an anticipation of actions to seek prepositioning
", with the help of the American government and GAFAM including Microsoft, argued the general.
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“
The Ukrainians needed help, the United States is far ahead of us and fills a void
,” he noted.
"
On the other hand, this questions our capacity and mutual assistance mechanisms
", he underlined, recalling that the European objective is to "
exchange a lot on intelligence of cyber interest, very quickly.
".
As the conflict progressed, the number of cyberattacks slowed markedly because the Russians "
have partially exhausted their offensive capacity
" and "
the Ukrainian defense has reached such a level that it is very complicated
", he noted. .
Moreover, if the offensive fight is effective at the very beginning of the conflict, then "
you no longer need to attack the computer of a power station if you bombard
it", concluded the general.