Ukrainian hackers say they compromised a major Russian drone company, destroying data, backups, and systems
A pair of Ukraine-supporting hacktivist groups have reportedly claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on a major supplier of drones to Russia’s military called Gaskar Group.
TechCrunch reported that BO Team—the “BO” stands for “Black Owl,” not “Body Odor,” in case you’re wondering—announced the operation with a Telegram post on July 14. The group stated that the attack was a joint effort among its members, another group known as the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and Ukraine’s military intelligence agency.
This collaborative effort allowed the groups “to capture the entire network and server infrastructure of Gaskar Group,” BO Team said, and “collect valuable information about manufactured and prospective UAVs with the subsequent destruction of information and disabling this infrastructure.” (According to Google Translate’s reading of the post.)
BO Team said that it was primarily focused on “the destruction of the infrastructure of the Gaskar Group production complex,” with the group claiming that “47 TB of valuable data at the Gaskar Group production site was destroyed, including 10 TB of backup copies, [and] the production systems and all auxiliary systems were disabled.”
The Record, citing the Ukrainian outlet Hromadske, reported that Ukraine’s military intelligence agency confirmed the attack. It also reported that the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance published some information taken from Gaskar Group and said that “thousands of drones won’t be reaching the front lines anytime soon” because of the attack.
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in warfare isn’t novel; the U.S. has been waging war with UAVs for decades. But those were purpose-built to conduct strikes, enable aerial reconnaissance, etc., and the Russia-Ukraine conflict has instead turned what would otherwise be considered hobbyist-grade drones into weapons of war.
Reuters published a special investigation in March 2024 in which it said that “the war in Ukraine has been characterised by drone deployment of unprecedented scale” and that “the tiny, inexpensive [first-person view] drone has proved to be one of the most potent weapons in this war, where conventional warplanes are relatively rare because of a dense concentration of anti-aircraft systems near front lines.”
Perhaps the most well-known example of drones being used in this conflict arrived in June with “Operation Spiderweb.” CNN reported that Ukraine used drones to destroy “dozens of Russian warplanes” in what the outlet described as “one of Kyiv’s most audacious and sophisticated counter assaults since the beginning of the war.”
Russia has also used drones—both the relatively large ones similar to those used by the U.S. and the much smaller versions used in Operation Spiderweb—to attack Ukraine. Disrupting the supply of those devices, or even just delaying their delivery, is vital to Ukraine’s efforts to keep Putin and his invasive forces at bay.
Gaskar Group has, of course, reportedly denied that the cyberattack was effective. It certainly would be a shame if BO Team and the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance (or any other hacking groups) were to disprove those claims by publishing additional information or, say, conducting similar operations against other drone suppliers within Russia. Ahem.
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