Ukrainian Internet Provider Hacked | American Leaker Joins The Info War | Putin's Google Threats

Plus: What’s The Difference Between Misinformation And Disinformation?

As the war in Ukraine rages on, there remains little knowledge about how much of an impact Russian hackers had before and after the invasion.

Late last week, I learned that a Ukrainian internet provider called Triolan had been hacked not just once, but twice, first on February 24 and then on March 9. Sources confirmed the hacks had reset internal systems and that internet had gone down as a result. Getting the internet back online has proven difficult for Triolan, as physical access is required to some network systems, and in places that are being bombed, that's understandably not possible.

The first attack came at a similar time to a breach at Viasat, a satellite internet provider that serves some customers in Ukraine. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Ukraine are investigating the attack, according to Reuters. It could point to a concerted effort to target Ukrainians' internet access as the tanks rolled into their country.

If you have any tips on what's happening in Ukraine, or any stories about government surveillance, privacy or cybercrime, drop me an email on tbrewster@forbes.com or message me on Signal at +447782376697.

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Long before Russia started a war in Ukraine, Putin's government was pressuring tech giants to censor content it deemed illegal, which happened to include videos of Ukrainians' protesting. As per the Washington Post, Russian agents went to the home of Google’s top executive in Moscow to demand the tech giant down an app that helped citizens register protest votes against Putin. Google's exec had 24 hours to comply or be taken to prison. The app disappeared from Google's store soon after. It wasn't the only major tech provider the Kremlin had threatened.

Talking of Russia's censorship machine, Wikileaks-esque leaking organization DDoSecrets claimed it had its hands on 800 gigabytes of information from the Kremlin's web monitoring agency, Roskomnadzor. Emma Best, who cofounded DDoSecrets, didn't appear to be overly worried about joining the Russia-Ukraine information war.

Despite calls from Ukrainian government officials, Cloudflare says it won't be cutting off its cybersecurity tools from all Russians. The company says it’s better that Russians have internet access to get a better idea of what’s really happening in the conflict.

A Chinese hacking crew dubbed Mustang Panda has been trying to hack into European entities with lures related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in London told Forbes that any claim Beijing-backed hackers had exploited the Ukraine crisis amounted to a smear campaign.

In other allegations against Chinese hackers, cybersecurity company Mandiant said six U.S. state governments had been hacked. The attack vector was novel, via an app used by 18 states for animal health management. 

Winner Of The Week

It's been a while since Google made a huge cybersecurity acquisition, but over the last week it announced the purchase of Mandiant for $5.4 billion. Long known as one of the go-to companies for investigating cyberattacks, Mandiant will add to the already huge security knowledge base at Google.

Loser Of The Week

Another week, another apparent ransomware attack. Over the last week, games giant Ubisoft said it had suffered a "cyber security incident" without providing much more information. A ransomware crew called LAPSUS$, which has claimed responsibility for hacking Samsung and NVIDIA, appeared to be behind the attack, according to Bleeping Computer. Ubisoft later initiated a company-wide password reset as a precaution. It's unclear how severe the fallout will be.

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