This is how ordinary Finns are now hitting Russia

Ordinary network users are now attacking Russia. The activity is largely illegal.

Large-scale, mechanized cyber-attacks are trying to overthrow Russian websites, disinformation Youtube channels and affect the operations of foreign companies.

– It is clear that this is a criminal activity. No matter how much you want to defend Ukraine and be “on the side of the good,” says the chief security officer Teemu Mäkelä Elisa.

According to him, the cyber war has been going on for years, but the globalization of ordinary people that emerged during the war in Ukraine is a new phenomenon.

– Machined attacks have not been seen on such a scale before the war.

The Finnish police have also drawn attention to the rapidly growing problem. The phenomenon is global, and Finland also participates in illegal attacks.

– Finns also have a great desire to help, and cyber attacks have been brought out exceptionally openly during the war, says Mikko RauhamaaHead of the Central Criminal Police Cybercrime Prevention Center.

Cybercrimes that have come to the attention of the police have included denial-of-service attacks on agencies, embassies, businesses and individuals.

– The phenomenon has been identified and is well known.

Various cyber-attacks have been carried out by states and citizens throughout the online world. The hacker culture, represented by the Anonymous activist group, for example, has been around for a long time.

According to Rauhamaa, the war in Ukraine has brought the criminal means traditionally found on the dark web to the side of the ordinary Internet. They spread prominently across different social media channels.

– Very quickly after the crisis began, the volume increased.

Now various means of cyber influencing are becoming available to the general public in the context of normal internet use. Peace is particularly concerned that cyber attacks are visible and accessible to children and young people.

– The phenomenon has existed before, but the war brought it into the normal network. It can be tricky to outline where the boundary of a crime is going. The line between legal and illegal is blurred, Rauhamaa says.

Teemu Mäkelä also sees as an exceptional phenomenon how the online nation is offered ready-made tools with which to participate in the attack without any IT skills.

– There may even be a pre-made button that “from here you can attack”, in which case the user participates in crippling the services of a site.

Of course, there were similar ones in the past, but now the power is greater as more and more people use them.

– Participating in cyber attacks has been made really easy.

Telegram at the center of cyber attacks

A cyber attack refers to, among other things, phishing, phishing attacks, and attacks that exploit applications.

The attack aims to affect, for example, the availability of systems or the accuracy of information.

Machining for cyber attacks can be seen on social media channels and various discussion boards. They publish lists of attack targets or provide the tools mentioned by Mäkelä for “dosing”, ie denial of service attacks.

The instant messaging service Telegram in particular has risen to a major role in the middle of the war. It has become a digital battleground in the war between Russia and Ukraine, writes for example Time.

Similar services are Whatsapp and Signal, which are especially popular in Finland.

– Telegram reaches a lot of people. We are talking about groups of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people, Rauhamaa says.

Mäkelä says that Telegram was originally developed in Russia and is very popular in Russian-speaking countries.

– It is possible to create large groups there, the communication is encrypted and it is relatively easy to anonymize oneself, Mäkelä describes the features of Telegram that have facilitated its use as part of cyber influencing.

– Anyone can put content in it and make information move efficiently.

A channel of more than 300,000 thousand cyber soldiers

One of these Telegram channels has been named the Ukrainian IT Army. The channel has more than 300,000 subscribers.

Much of the discussion is in Hungarian, but sometimes publications are also made in English.

The channel publishes various lists of targets that can be cyber-attacked. At the end of March, one of the big targets was the Russian payment and financial services.

The lists may concern the websites or IP addresses of Russian companies, but also European companies that have not withdrawn from Russia. There are also Youtube channels on the listings that allegedly spread disinformation about the war.

The attack also goes into the process of making a Russian review of a Russian company without a real customer experience. Information about the war in Ukraine may be added to the review.

According to the police, the activities largely fulfill the characteristics of a crime. This may be a breach of data or a disruption of communications or an information system.

Even the deliberate “spamming” of e-mails can thus also be a punishable offense under criminal law.

In the poor evaluation of restaurants, there is talk of milder acts, but on a case-by-case basis they can fulfill the characteristics of defamation, for example.

– Or if the goal is to cause financial harm, it can also be a crime, Rauhamaa says.

Serious interference with telecommunications or the information system is punishable by a minimum of four months and a maximum of five years’ imprisonment in Finland. The company must also be punished. For a basic act, the sentence is a fine or imprisonment for up to two years.

Other dangers in addition to criminal liability

Rauhamaa reminds that although Finns have a strong desire to help, and supporting Ukrainians through online operations may seem like a good idea, it involves other dangers in addition to criminal liability.

The real driver of the lists is often unknown. And there is never any certainty as to where the link will actually take you. By downloading various tools, you can unknowingly download nasty surprises to your computer.

According to Rauhamaa, Finns’ enthusiasm for cybercrime is primarily about being on the side of Ukraine, but cyber attacks have also been seen in another direction from Finland during the war, ie against Ukraine.

Rauhamaa has one piece of advice for Finns.

– Let’s stay calm. The Penal Code still applies.

Supo warns of attacks on Finland

The protection police (supo) warned on Tuesday that Russia is likely to target cyber and information operations against Finland in the coming months.

According to Mäkelä and Rauhamaa, Finns should also prepare for cyber attacks against themselves.

– It’s a good idea to protect your devices and connections. Just because you don’t unknowingly become part of a cyber attack, Mäkelä suggests.