Russia had ongoing cyberwar with Ukraine years before invasion - cybersec expert

Russia had been engaged in an ongoing cyberwar with Ukraine for years before Russia began its invasion nearly a year ago, according to Andrew Jenkinson, a cybersecurity expert and Fellow of the CyberTheory Institute.

Jenkinson made these claims in his new book Digital Blood on their Hands: The Ukraine Cyberwar Attacks, where he also performs an in-depth examination of the cyberwar up to the invasion that began last year. Jenkinson was also named one of the world's leading 30 cybersecurity experts by The European Institute of Risk.

He states that this is the first cyberwar by one country against another in his book and adds that it addresses the issues that the digital world has created.

“Malware attacks caused untold damage to the Ukrainian population and government previously, which allowed Russia to fine-tune cyberattacks for further, more global events,” Jenkinson said. He also noted that Russia launched a large-scale cyber offensive against 70 Ukrainian government websites.

He also claims in his new book that security faults were made public knowledge years ago but few attempts were made to rectify them.

His book talks about Israel

Jenkinson also mentions in his book, regarding examples of cyber attacks between nations, that Israeli officials met with the Bush administration to form a campaign known as “Olympic Games,” better known as Stuxnet, which targets data acquisition systems and caused damage to the Iran nuclear program.

Neither the Israeli nor the US government have claimed involvement in Stuxnet, according to his book.