Ukraine Warns of 'Massive' Russian Spear-Phishing Campaign

Three Ukrainian cybersecurity agencies have warned last week of a "massive" spear-phishing operation carried out by Russian threat actors against the Ukrainian government and private sector. From a report: The Ukrainian Secret Service, one of the three agencies, has attributed the attack to the "special services of the Russian Federation," marking the third cyberattack the agency has publicly attributed to Russian hackers this year. The spear-phishing operation took place in early June last week, according to alerts published by the Ukrainian Secret Service, Ukrainian Cyber Police, and CERT Ukraine. The attackers sent emails posing as representatives for the Kyiv Patrol Police Department, warning recipients of their failure to pay local taxes.

If Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually worked as a team with the rest of the fucking countries in this world, then they might actually get somewhere and everyone would have a better quality of life instead of getting shot down in civilian airliners, novichok poisoned, or polonium poisoning.

Instead it's fuck everybody over where they can and try to get best buddies with China. With the upshot that nobody really likes them anymore because they're being dicks.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

A good way to spot Kremlin trolls is their tendency to verify Godwin's Law right away.

Sure other idiots do that too. But if you have a topic that has to do with Russia, the chance is high for the idiot to be one of the Pro-Kremlin ones.

Re:If Russia

[theshowmecanuck]

You forget that Putin is not just their head of state, but a mafia boss. He creates enemies so that the country will be distracted by having someone else to fight and there are less eyes on him. Like America's mom and apple pie bullshit when something happens, Russia has their 'mother Russia' propaganda construct. In both cases they fly their flags and anyone who doesn't support their leader is branded a traitor and persecuted by their respective right wing dimwits. So with a manufactured crisis, whoever is in power won't get attacked even if they are cunts who should be hanged.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Actually worked as a team with the rest of the fucking countries in this world, then they might actually get somewhere

Where? What can you get from Russia that you can't better get somewhere else, from a country with more going for it? All they have is ice and fossil fuels, and beets. The ice is melting and it's melting because we need to burn less fossil fuels... and beets are gross ;)

Re:

[garyisabusyguy]

sure Vlad

And....

[garyisabusyguy]

absolutely NOBODY is surprised, not even the trolls posting their outrage here

Predictable

[Virtucon]

Why use expensive assets to achieve a political goal when a few bucks spread out over a few hackers can get you the same results?

I practically pay them with Arby's gift cards.

- Stormfront (The Boys)

E-fail.

[Ostracus]

The attackers sent emails posing as representatives for the Kyiv Patrol Police Department, warning recipients of their failure to pay local taxes.

And now you know why the IRS doesn't use E-mail to demand taxes.

Really

[Big Bipper]

They expect the rest of the world to believe that the Russian Government, posing as Ukrainian tax collectors, is trying to shake them down for a few bucks. I'ld say 'nice try', only it really wasn't.

Lol, you trusted the hackers

[raymorris]

Lll. Tax-invoice.pdf.exe isn't really an invoice, bro.

They *say* "open the file to pay the $34â.
That's not what really happens when you open the file. It's really a copy of this:

https://www.remoteutilities.co... [remoteutilities.com]

Spear-Phishing

[doconnor]

Isn't Spear-Phishing when you target specific people with a custom email based on what you can find out about them.

A generic warning about not paying local taxes would be just regular phishing.

Re:

[raymorris]

Right, if they had sent out the same email to random email addresses, that would just be phishing.

When they send emails to the sysadmins of large companies and government agencies, with those emails including the persons name, etc. That's spear phishing.

If they sent the email to the CISOs, that would be whaling.