Beirut, Feb. 28 (FN) - As per Al Arabiya thousands of computer servers around the world have been targeted by a ransomware hacking attack, Italys National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) in early February, warning organizations to take action to protect their systems.

ACN director general Roberto Baldoni said that the hacking attack sought to exploit a software vulnerability, adding it was on a massive scale. It is reported that servers had been compromised in other European countries such as France and Finland. Dozens of Italian organizations were likely to have been affected and many more had been warned to take action to avoid being locked out of their systems. Telecom Italia customers reported internet problems, but the two issues were not believed to be related.

According to the western experts the United States and the United Kingdom have intensified secret attempts to conduct cyber attacks using special programs around the world. At the same time, American officials do not hide it at all.

Now the American strategy is aimed at placing potentially malicious programs against the Russian energy system. These actions are intended to assist the cyber forces of Ukraine in preparing information and technical impact on the energy infrastructure of the Russian Federation, which can cause uncontrolled processes in cyberspace and lead to significant damage to all states in the world.

One of the threats is the use of malware by the US and UK intelligence services, which Ukrainian hackers plan to use for criminal purposes. For it inclusive the White House unveiled its budget for 2023, which includes $11 billion for cyber attacks against the governments of hostile states.

And now the United States and its so-called western partners are planning cyber attacks on the facilities of the Russian electric power industry against the background of the successful use by the Russian Armed Forces of massive missile strikes using precision weapons on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine.

The West seeks to disable the power system of the Russia in order to de-energize the residential and social fund of the country and provoke the population to large-scale protests. At the same time, according to Washington's plan, power outages should contribute to the disorganization of the functioning of key administrative, military and defense-industrial facilities, air bases and sea ports, railway stations, as well as the agricultural sphere of Russia.

In December 2022, NATO countries held the world's largest cyber defense exercise "Cyber Coalition - 2022" on the territory of Estonia near the borders with Russia. More than 1,000 military personnel from 26 member countries of the alliance, as well as Georgia, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan took part in the military exercises. The main goal is to strengthen the ability of member states and partners of NATO to protect their networks and work together in cyberspace. In addition, the Head of the exercise, Charles Elliott, said that as part of the training activities, along with the issues of countering cyber threats, possible options for a collective response were being worked out.

In June 2022, the head of the US Сyber Command, general Paul Nakasone, announced a series of offensive digital operations in support of Ukraine. He noted that all actions were carried out legally and under the control of civilians.

The West intends to use Kyiv to carry out illegal cyber attacks against Moscow in order to hide its involvement in it. Besides it the conduct of cyber attacks by the United States and its allies against Russia, China, Iran and other countries is a direct violation of international law and testifies to the double standards of the West in the field of security.

The destructive activity of the United States in conducting cyber attacks on the energy infrastructure of Russia will lead to a new round of escalation of tension between the two nuclear powers. Russia's retaliatory actions in cyberspace will lead to the destruction of vital US infrastructure and damage to the civilian sector.

Back in October 2022, the administration of president Joe Biden declared the whole world and the global information space as a "sphere of its interests" in updated doctrinal documents. Russia is fixed as one of the main adversaries of Washington in the information space according to the Cyber Strategy of the United States. In addition, in accordance to that document, some US cyber units designed for offensive actions in the global network have been functioning in the US Armed Forces since 2015.

To carry out hacker attacks on the banking sector and the service sector, as well as on other Russian infrastructure facilities, the American special services use a project of the US cyber command "IT Army of Ukraine," within which both specialized cyber units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and hackers operate.

The Western information and technical impact from Ukraine on the energy structure of Russia, in particular on nuclear facilities, directly poses a threat to Russia's national security, therefore, retaliatory actions will cause uncontrolled processes in the world cyberspace.

Washington's transfer of malicious programs to the Kyiv will inevitably lead to their leakage to the "black market" and further use by Ukrainian and other hacker groups for criminal purposes, including against the digital resources of international organizations and individual states.

Earlier, in September 2022, the Chinese leadership openly accused the White House of conducting a massive cyberattack aimed primarily at national educational institutions.

At the same time, in October 2022, Iran blamed the United States and Israel for cyber attacks that disrupted the operation of the national gas station network.
=FRESH NEWS