Daryna Antoniuk
Kremlin-backed hackers have turned to an unconventional tactic to target Ukraine's military, researchers have found. In a recent campaign, the group known as Secret Blizzard hijacked tools and infrastructure from Russian cybercriminals, repurposing them for espionage.
The likely aim of this approach is to diversify the group's attack vectors, according to a new report by Microsoft. Other researchers have previously noted that this tactic also complicates attribution, allowing the group to shift blame to other threat actors if their malicious actions are uncovered.
Secret Blizzard, also tracked as Turla, has tried the strategy elsewhere before using it in Ukraine. Researchers have identified at least four instances where the group appeared to embed itself in another threat actor’s operations. Earlier in December, Microsoft detailed Secret Blizzard’s attacks on government-related targets in India and Afghanistan, conducted through the infrastructure used by the Pakistan-based cyber-espionage group.
In a report published Wednesday, Microsoft said it discovered two campaigns in which Secret Blizzard used the infrastructure of fellow threat actors to deploy custom malware on devices associated with the Ukrainian military.
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