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With Russia's dramatic buildup at the Ukraine border, it'd be little surprise if a wave of cyberattacks was incoming. Thus far, though, hackers have been relatively quiet, as far as public attacks are concerned. Multiple sources in Ukraine tell me they're as stoic as they can be and are carrying on, ready for assaults in whatever form they take, physical or digital.

But there are signs that, whether a war starts or not, computing infrastructure will be targeted by one side or another. The Belarusian train service, for instance, was subjected to an apparent breach and an attempted ransomware attack by a group of hacktivists who are trying to cause problems for the Kremlin as it sends its military towards Ukraine.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has offered more detail on attacks that tried to wipe computers at government agencies in January. Its State Service for Communications and Information Protection said that much of the code in the malware used in the attacks was borrowed from a ransomware strain. It just so happened that in its ransom note to victims, the ransomware crew used a depiction of a trident, Ukraine’s official coat of arms. Ukraine thinks this might be a distraction and a possible false flag to confuse investigators about who really launched the attacks.

The U.K. government is alarmed enough, as a branch of spy agency GCHQ has urged companies and official departments to be prepared for any fallout from any cyber offensives launched in and around Ukraine. "While we are unaware of any specific cyber threats to UK organisations in relation to events in Ukraine, we are monitoring the situation closely and it is vital that organisations follow the guidance to ensure they are resilient," said Paul Chichester, NCSC director of operations.

“Over several years, we have observed a pattern of malicious Russian behaviour in cyberspace. Last week’s incidents in Ukraine bear the hallmarks of similar Russian activity we have observed before.” 

Despite those events, it's still quiet. For now. Many do not expect it to stay that way.

If you have any tips on government surveillance, privacy or cybercrime, drop me an email on tbrewster@forbes.com or message me on Signal at +447782376697.

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More than 3,600 network-attached storage devices made by QNAP were hit by a ransomware named Deadbolt, causing serious problems for anyone who had critical data stored on the machines.

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Facebook has been quietly updating its opt-in end-to-end encryption in Messenger. Just last week it announced an update that meant everyone can now do end-to-end encrypted group calls and messages.

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