Ukraine war sanctions could spur Russian cyberattacks on U.S., expert warns

As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine last week, military and security experts anticipated both conventional warfare attacks — missiles, bombs, gunfire — and devastating cyber strikes targeting Ukraine's critical infrastructure as well as digital networks in allied countries.

Indeed, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a "shields up" alert well ahead of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 23, warning IT departments everywhere to monitor for suspicious activity that could disrupt their business or government operations. The technology consulting firm Wedbush affirmed the alert and issued a report warning U.S. financial institutions, enterprise data centers and logistics companies to prepare for Russia-directed cyberattacks.

Aside from a handful of denial of service attacks and wiper malware that deletes data, the Kremlin's formidable hacker army has remained relatively quiet since the invasion. But don't expect Russian restraint to last, said Chris Krebs, partner at the Krebs Stamos Group and former head of CISA.