By James Pearson
LONDON (Reuters) – Ukraine’s “IT army” of volunteer hackers announced a new set of targets on Thursday – including the Belarusian railway network and Russia’s homegrown satellite-based navigation system, GLONASS.
“We need to mobilise and intensify our efforts as much as possible,” a post on the “IT army” Telegram channel said.
The post listed the top priorities targeted by the group, including Belarus’ railway, Russian telecom companies, and GLONASS, which is Russia’s alternative to the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation network.
Ukraine has called on its hacker underground to help protect critical infrastructure and conduct cyber spying missions against Russian troops, Reuters previously reported. Kyiv announced the formation of its “IT army” on Saturday.
A hacking team focused on Belarus, which has been used as a key staging post for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, called the Belarusian Cyber Partisans told Reuters on Tuesday they had disabled railway traffic systems there and attacked the network because it had been used to transport Russian soldiers.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.
(Reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Frances Kerry)
