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rocket-report:-north-korean-rocket-explosion;-launch-over-chinese-skyline

Rocket Report: North Korean rocket explosion; launch over Chinese skyline

Boeing, china, Commercial space, european space agency, falcon 9, human spaceflight, india, launch, North Korea, rocket lab, rocket report, russia, Science, Space, spacex, starliner, starship / /
A sea-borne variant of the commercial Ceres 1 rocket lifts off near the coast of Rizhao, a city of 3 million in China's Shandong province.

Enlarge / A sea-borne variant of the commercial Ceres 1 rocket lifts off near the coast of Rizhao, a city of 3 million in China’s Shandong province.

Welcome to Edition 6.46 of the Rocket Report! It looks like we will be covering the crew test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and the fourth test flight of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket over the next week. All of this is happening as SpaceX keeps up its cadence of flying multiple Starlink missions per week. The real stars are the Ars copy editors helping make sure our stories don’t use the wrong names.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Another North Korean launch failure. North Korea’s latest attempt to launch a rocket with a military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure due to the midair explosion of the rocket during the first-stage flight this week, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports. Video captured by the Japanese news organization NHK appears to show the North Korean rocket disappearing in a fireball shortly after liftoff Monday night from a launch pad on the country’s northwest coast. North Korean officials acknowledged the launch failure and said the rocket was carrying a small reconnaissance satellite named Malligyong-1-1.

Russia’s role? … Experts initially thought the pending North Korean launch, which was known ahead of time from international airspace warning notices, would use the same Chŏllima 1 rocket used on three flights last year. But North Korean statements following the launch Monday indicated the rocket used a new propulsion system burning a petroleum-based fuel, presumably kerosene, with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. The Chŏllima 1 rocket design used a toxic mixture of hypergolic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as propellants. If North Korea’s statement is true, this would be a notable leap in the country’s rocket technology and begs the question of whether Russia played a significant role in the launch. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged more Russian support for North Korea’s rocket program in a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (submitted by Ken the Bin and Jay500001)

Rocket Lab deploys small NASA climate satellite. Rocket Lab is in the midst of back-to-back launches for NASA, carrying identical climate research satellites into different orbits to study heat loss to space in Earth’s polar regions. The Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment (PREFIRE) satellites are each about the size of a shoebox, and NASA says data from PREFIRE will improve computer models that researchers use to predict how Earth’s ice, seas, and weather will change in a warming world. “The difference between the amount of heat Earth absorbs at the tropics and that radiated out from the Arctic and Antarctic is a key influence on the planet’s temperature, helping to drive dynamic systems of climate and weather,” NASA said in a statement.

Twice in a week… NASA selected Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle to deliver the two PREFIRE satellites into orbit on two dedicated rides rather than launching at a lower cost on a rideshare mission. This is because scientists want the satellites flying at the proper alignment to ensure they fly over the poles several hours apart, providing the data needed to measure how the rate at which heat radiates from the polar regions changes over time. The first PREFIRE launch occurred on May 25, and the next one is slated for May 31. Both launches will take off from Rocket Lab’s base in New Zealand. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

A rocket launch comes to Rizhao. China has diversified its launch sector over the last decade to include new families of small satellite launchers and new spaceports. One of these relatively new small rockets, the solid-fueled Ceres 1, took off Wednesday from a floating launch pad positioned about 2 miles (3 km) off the coast of Rizhao, a city of roughly 3 million people in China’s Shandong province. The Ceres 1 rocket, developed by a quasi-commercial company called Galactic Energy, has previously flown from land-based launch pads and a sea-borne platform, but this mission originated from a location remarkably close to shore, with the skyline of a major metropolitan area as a backdrop.

Range safety … There’s no obvious orbital mechanics reason to position the rocket’s floating launch platform so near a major Chinese city, other than perhaps to gain a logistical advantage by launching close to port. The Ceres 1 rocket has a fairly good reliability record—11 successes in 12 flights—but for safety reasons, there’s no Western spaceport that would allow members of the public (not to mention a few million) to get so close to a rocket launch. For decades, Chinese rockets have routinely dropped rocket boosters containing toxic propellant on farms and villages downrange from the country’s inland spaceports.

Rocket Report: North Korean rocket explosion; launch over Chinese skyline Read More »

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US officials: A Russian rocket launch last week likely deployed a space weapon

ASAT, keyhole, launch, military space, russia, Science, Space, space warfare, spy satellite / /

Co-planar —

“Naming space as a warfighting domain was kind of forbidden, but that’s changed.”

–

A Russian Soyuz rocket climbs away from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on May 16.

Enlarge / A Russian Soyuz rocket climbs away from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on May 16.

The launch of a classified Russian military satellite last week deployed a payload that US government officials say is likely a space weapon.

In a series of statements, US officials said the new military satellite, named Kosmos 2576, appears to be similar to two previous “inspector” spacecraft launched by Russia in 2019 and 2022.

“Just last week, on May 16, Russia launched a satellite into low-Earth orbit that the United States assesses is likely a counter-space weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low-Earth orbit,” said Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the United Nations. “Russia deployed this new counter-space weapon into the same orbit as a US government satellite.”

Kosmos 2576 is flying in the same orbital plane as a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) spy satellite, meaning it can regularly approach the top-secret US reconnaissance platform. The launch of Kosmos 2576 from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a Soyuz rocket was precisely timed to happen when the Earth’s rotation brought the launch site underneath the orbital path of the NRO spy satellite, officially designated USA 314.

The Soyuz rocket’s Fregat upper stage released Kosmos 2576 into an orbit roughly 275 miles (445 km) above Earth at an inclination of 97.25 degrees to the equator.

Conventional but concerning

So far, Kosmos 2576 is nowhere near USA 314, a bus-size spacecraft believed to carry a powerful Earth-facing telescope to capture high-resolution images for use by US intelligence agencies. This type of spacecraft is publicly known as a KH-11, or Keyhole-class, satellite, but its design and capabilities are top-secret.

It’s no surprise that the Russian military wants to get a close look in hopes of learning more about the US government’s most closely held secrets about what it does in orbit. Russian satellites have also flown near Western communications satellites in geostationary orbit, likely in an attempt to eavesdrop on radio transmissions.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, dismissed the US government’s assessment about the purpose of Kosmos 2576 as “fake news.” However, in the last few years, Russia has steered satellites into orbits intersecting with the paths of US spy platforms, and demonstrated it can take out an enemy satellite using a range of methods.

The current orbit of Kosmos 2576 will only occasionally bring it within a few hundred kilometers of the USA 314, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and expert tracker of spaceflight events. However, analysts expect additional maneuvers to raise the altitude Kosmos 2576 and put it into position for closer passes. This is what happened with a pair of Russian satellites launched in 2019 and 2022.

These two previous Russian satellites—Kosmos 2542 and Kosmos 2558— continually flew within a few dozen kilometers of two other NRO satellites—USA 245 and USA 326—in low-Earth orbit. In a post on the social media platform X, McDowell wrote that the Russian military craft “shadowed US satellites at a large distance but have not interfered with them.”

Because of this, McDowell wrote that he is “highly skeptical” that Kosmos 2576 is an anti-satellite weapon.

But one of these Russian satellites, Kosmos 2542, released a smaller sub-satellite, designated Kosmos 2543, which made its own passes near the USA 245 spacecraft, a KH-11 imaging satellite similar to USA 314. At one point, satellite trackers noticed USA 245 made a slight change to orbit. Its Russian pursuer later made a similar orbit adjustment to keep up.

In 2020, Kosmos 2543 backed off from USA 245. Once well away from the NRO satellite, Kosmos 2543 ejected a mysterious projectile into space at a speed fast enough to damage any target in its sights.

At the time, US Space Command called the event a “non-destructive test of a space-based anti-satellite weapon.” The projectile fired from Kosmos 2543 at a relative velocity of some 400 mph (700 km per hour), according to McDowell’s analysis of publicly available satellite tracking data.

Gen. Charles

Enlarge / Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, says the US military must have an ability to defend itself in space.

The US military has identified China as its most significant strategic adversary in the coming decades. Most aspects of Russia’s space program are in decline, but it still boasts formidable anti-satellite capabilities. Russia intentionally destroyed one of its retired satellites in orbit with a ground-based missile in 2021. The Russian military has also deployed several Peresvet laser units capable of disabling a satellite in orbit. A Russian cyberattack at the start of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 knocked a commercial satellite communications network offline.

Most recently, US government officials have claimed Russia is developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon. Russian officials also denied this. But Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution last month reiterating language from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

The US military has its own fleet of inspector satellites in orbit to track what other nations are doing in space. The Space Force’s development of any offensive military capability in space is classified.

“The space domain is much more challenging today than it was a number a number of years ago,” said Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, in an event Wednesday hosted by the Atlantic Council. “We looked at it as a very benign environment, where you didn’t have to worry about conflicts in space. As a matter of fact, naming space as a warfighting domain was kind of forbidden, but that’s changed, and it’s been changed based what our adversaries are doing in space.”

“We don’t want to have our satellites … be challenged,” Brown said. “So we want to make sure that we have the capabilities to defend ourselves, no matter what domain we’re in, whether it’s in the space domain, air, land, or maritime. That’s where our focus is as a military, in making sure we’re investing to provide the capabilities and expertise to do that.”

US officials: A Russian rocket launch last week likely deployed a space weapon Read More »

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Russia stands alone in vetoing UN resolution on nuclear weapons in space

anti-satellite tests, military space, Nuclear weapons, russia, Science, Space, United Nations / /

ASAT —

“The United States assesses that Russia is developing a new satellite carrying a nuclear device.”

–

A meeting of the UN Security Council on April 14.

Enlarge / A meeting of the UN Security Council on April 14.

Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution Wednesday that would have reaffirmed a nearly 50-year-old ban on placing weapons of mass destruction into orbit, two months after reports Russia has plans to do just that.

Russia’s vote against the resolution was no surprise. As one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, Russia has veto power over any resolution that comes before the body. China abstained from the vote, and 13 other members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution.

If it passed, the resolution would have affirmed a binding obligation in Article IV of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which says nations are “not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction.”

Going nuclear

Russia is one of 115 parties to the Outer Space Treaty. The Security Council vote Wednesday follows reports in February that Russia is developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon.

“The United States assesses that Russia is developing a new satellite carrying a nuclear device,” said Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security advisor. “We have heard President Putin say publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space. If that were the case, Russia would not have vetoed this resolution.”

The United States and Japan proposed the joint resolution, which also called on nations not to develop nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction designed to be placed into orbit around the Earth. In a statement, US and Japanese diplomats highlighted the danger of a nuclear detonation in space. Such an event would have “grave implications for sustainable development, and other aspects of international peace and security,” US officials said in a press release.

With its abstention from the vote, “China has shown that it would rather defend Russia as its junior partner, than safeguard the global nonproliferation regime,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN.

US government officials have not offered details about the exact nature of the anti-satellite weapon they say Russia is developing. A nuclear explosion in orbit would destroy numerous satellites—from many countries—and endanger astronauts. Space debris created from a nuclear detonation could clutter orbital traffic lanes needed for future spacecraft.

The Soviet Union launched more than 30 military satellites powered by nuclear reactors. Russia’s military space program languished in the first couple of decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, and US intelligence officials say it still lags behind the capabilities possessed by the US Space Force and the Chinese military.

Russia’s military funding has largely gone toward the war in Ukraine for the last two years, but Putin and other top Russian officials have raised threats of nuclear force and attacks on space assets against adversaries. Russia’s military launched a cyberattack against a commercial satellite communications network when it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Russia has long had an appetite for anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons. The Soviet Union experimented with “co-orbital” ASATs in the 1960s and 1970s. When deployed, these co-orbital ASATs would have attacked enemy satellites by approaching them and detonating explosives or using a grappling arm to move the target out of orbit.

Russian troops at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in far northern Russia prepare for the launch of a Soyuz rocket with the Kosmos 2575 satellite in February.

Enlarge / Russian troops at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in far northern Russia prepare for the launch of a Soyuz rocket with the Kosmos 2575 satellite in February.

Russian Ministry of Defense

In 1987, the Soviet Union launched an experimental weapons platform into orbit to test laser technologies that could be used against enemy satellites. Russia shot down one of its own satellites in 2021 in a widely condemned “direct ascent” ASAT test. This Russian direct ascent ASAT test followed demonstrations of similar capability by China, the United States, and India. Russia’s military has also demonstrated satellites over the last decade that could grapple onto an adversary’s spacecraft in orbit, or fire a projectile to take out an enemy satellite.

These ASAT capabilities could destroy or disable one enemy satellite at a time. The US Space Force is getting around this threat by launching large constellations of small satellites to augment the military’s much larger legacy communications, surveillance, and missile warning spacecraft. A nuclear ASAT weapon could threaten an entire constellation or render some of space inaccessible due to space debris.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, called this week’s UN resolution “an unscrupulous play of the United States” and a “cynical forgery and deception.” Russia and China proposed an amendment to the resolution that would have banned all weapons in space. This amendment got the support of about half of the Security Council but did not pass.

Outside the 15-member Security Council, the original resolution proposed by the United States and Japan won the support of more than 60 nations as co-sponsors.

“Regrettably, one permanent member decided to silence the critical message we wanted to send to the present and future people of the world: Outer space must remain a domain of peace, free of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons,” said Kazuyuki Yamazaki, Japan’s ambassador to the UN.

Russia stands alone in vetoing UN resolution on nuclear weapons in space Read More »

rocket-report:-blue-origin-to-resume-human-flights;-progress-for-polaris-dawn

Rocket Report: Blue Origin to resume human flights; progress for Polaris Dawn

blue origin, Commercial space, ed Dwight, human spaceflight, launch, Polaris dawn, rocket report, russia, Science, Space, spacex, united launch alliance / /

The wait is over —

“The pacing item in our supply chain is the BE-4.”

–

Ed Dwight stands in front of an F-104 jet fighter in 1963.

Enlarge / Ed Dwight stands in front of an F-104 jet fighter in 1963.

Welcome to Edition 6.38 of the Rocket Report! Ed Dwight was close to joining NASA’s astronaut corps more than 60 years ago. With an aeronautical engineering degree and experience as an Air Force test pilot, Dwight met the qualifications to become an astronaut. He was one of 26 test pilots the Air Force recommended to NASA for the third class of astronauts in 1963, but he wasn’t selected. Now, the man who would have become the first Black astronaut will finally get a chance to fly to space.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Ed Dwight named to Blue Origin’s next human flight. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, announced Thursday that 90-year-old Ed Dwight, who almost became the first Black astronaut in 1963, will be one of six people to fly to suborbital space on the company’s next New Shepard flight. Dwight, a retired Air Force captain, piloted military fighter jets and graduated test pilot school, following a familiar career track as many of the early astronauts. He was on a short list of astronaut candidates the Air Force provided NASA, but the space agency didn’t include him. It took 20 more years for the first Black American to fly to space. Dwight’s ticket with Blue Origin is sponsored by Space for Humanity, a nonprofit that seeks to expand access to space for all people. Five paying passengers will join Dwight for the roughly 10-minute up-and-down flight to the edge of space over West Texas. Kudos to Space for Humanity and Blue Origin for making this happen.

Return to flight … This mission, named NS-25, will be the first time Blue Origin flies with human passengers since August 2022. Blue Origin hasn’t announced a launch date yet for NS-25. On an uncrewed launch the following month, an engine failure destroyed a New Shepard booster and grounded Blue Origin’s suborbital rocket program for more than 15 months. New Shepard returned to flight December 19 on another research flight, again without anyone onboard. As the mission name suggests, this will be the 25th flight of a New Shepard rocket and the seventh flight with people. Blue Origin has a history of flying aviation pioneers and celebrities. On the first human flight with New Shepard in 2021, the passengers included company founder Jeff Bezos and famed female aviator Wally Funk. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Revisit Astra’s 2020 rocket explosion. In March 2020, as the world was under the grip of COVID, Astra blew up a rocket in remote Alaska and didn’t want anyone to see it. New video published by TechCrunch shows Astra’s Rocket 3 vehicle exploding on its launch pad. This was one of several setbacks that have brought the startup to its knees. The explosion, which occurred at Alaska’s Pacific Spaceport Complex, was simply reported as an “anomaly” at the time, an industry term for pretty much any issue that deviates from the expected outcome, TechCrunch reports. Satellite imagery of the launch site showed burn scars, suggesting an explosion, but the footage published this week confirms the reality of the event. This was Astra’s first orbital-class rocket, and it blew up during a fueling rehearsal.

A sign of things to come … Astra eventually flew its Rocket 3 small satellite launcher seven times, but only two of the flights actually reached orbit. This prompted Astra to abandon its Rocket 3 program and focus on developing a larger rocket, Rocket 4. But the future of this new rocket is in doubt. Astra’s co-founders are taking the company private after its market value and stock price tanked, and it’s not clear where the company will go from here. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Russia’s plan to “restore” its launch industry. Yuri Borisov, chief of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has outlined a strategy for Russia to regain a dominant position in the global launch market, Ars reports. This will include the development of a partially reusable replacement for the Soyuz rocket called Amur-CNG. The country’s spaceflight enterprise is also working on “ultralight” boosters that will incorporate an element of reusability. In an interview posted on the Roscosmos website, Borisov said he hopes Russia will have a “completely new fleet of space vehicles” by the 2028-2029 timeframe. Russia has previously discussed plans to develop the Amur rocket (the CNG refers to the propellant, liquified methane). The multi-engine vehicle looks somewhat similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in that preliminary designs incorporated landing legs and grid fins to enable a powered first-stage landing.

Reason to doubt … Russia’s launch industry was a global leader a couple of decades ago when prices were cheap relative to Western rockets. But the heavy-lift Proton rocket is nearing retirement after concerns about its reliability, and the still-reliable Soyuz is now excluded from the global market after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the 2000s and 2010s, Russia’s position in the market was supplanted by the European Ariane 5 rocket and then SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Roscosmos originally announced the medium-lift Amur rocket program in 2020 for a maiden flight in 2026. Since then, the rocket has encountered a nearly year-for-year delay in its first test launch. I’ll believe it when I see it. The only new, large rocket Russia has developed in nearly 40 years, the expendable Angara A5, is still launching dummy payloads on test flights a decade after its debut.

Rocket Report: Blue Origin to resume human flights; progress for Polaris Dawn Read More »

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Russia has a plan to “restore” its dominant position in the global launch market

amur, russia, Science, Space / /
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Roscosmos Space Corporation Chief Yuri Borisov peruse an exhibit while visiting the Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, October 26, 2023, in Korolev, Russia.

Enlarge / Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Roscosmos Space Corporation Chief Yuri Borisov peruse an exhibit while visiting the Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, October 26, 2023, in Korolev, Russia.

Contributor/Getty Images

It has been a terrible decade for the Russian launch industry, which once led the world. The country’s long-running workhorse, the Proton rocket, ran into reliability issues and will soon be retired. Russia’s next-generation rocket, Angara, is fully expendable and still flying dummy payloads on test flights a decade after its debut. And the ever-reliable Soyuz vehicle lost access to lucrative Western markets after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Yet there has been a more fundamental, underlying disease pushing the once-vaunted Russian launch industry toward irrelevance. The country has largely relied on decades-old technology in a time of serious innovation within the launch industry. So what worked at the turn of the century to attract the launches of commercial satellites no longer does against the rising tide of competition from SpaceX, as well as other players in India and China.

Through the first quarter of this year, Russia has launched a total of five rockets, all variants of the Soyuz vehicle. SpaceX alone has launched 32 rockets. China, too, has launched nearly three times as many boosters as Russia.

However, Russia has a plan to reclaim the dominance it once held in the global launch industry. In a recent interview published on the Roscosmos website (a non-geo-blocked version is available here) the chief of the Russian space corporation, Yuri Borisov, outlined the strategy by which the country will do so.

The first step, Borisov said, is to develop a partially reusable replacement for the Soyuz rocket, called Amur-CNG. The country’s spaceflight enterprise is also working on “ultralight” boosters that will incorporate an element of reusability.

“I hope that by the 2028–2029 timeframe we will have a completely new fleet of space vehicles and will be able to restore our position in the global launch services market,” Borisov said in the interview, which was translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell.

A miracle, Amur

Russia has previously discussed plans to develop the Amur rocket (the CNG refers to the propellant, liquified methane). The multi-engine vehicle looks somewhat similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in that preliminary designs incorporated landing legs and grid fins to enable a powered first-stage landing.

The country’s space industry first unveiled its Amur plans back in 2020, when officials said they were targeting a low price of just $22 million for a launch on Amur, which would be capable of delivering 10.5 tons to low-Earth orbit. Essentially, then, it would offer about half the carrying capacity of a Falcon 9 rocket for one-third of the price.

At the time, Roscosmos officials were targeting a 2026 debut for Amur. Had they been able to deliver such a capability, it would undoubtedly be an attractively priced offering. Alas, the year 2026 appears to be off the table now. Through his comments, Borisov indicated that Amur will not be ready before 2028 or 2029.

Since there has been almost a year-for-year slippage in that date since Amur’s announcement in 2020, it seems likely that even this target late in the decade is unrealistic.

Russia has a plan to “restore” its dominant position in the global launch market Read More »

largely-cut-off-from-western-games,-russia-looks-into-a-homegrown-game-console

Largely cut off from Western games, Russia looks into a homegrown game console

gaming, russia, video games / /

The new digital iron curtain —

How hard could it be?

–

A Cold War-era arcade cabinet that serves as an example of what happened the last time Russia was forced to create a home-grown video game market.

Enlarge / A Cold War-era arcade cabinet that serves as an example of what happened the last time Russia was forced to create a home-grown video game market.

It’s been over two years since major players in the international game industry united to largely cut off the Russian market in response to a request from a beleaguered Ukraine. The relative isolation has apparently forced Vladimir Putin’s government to contemplate the kind of homegrown gaming hardware and software that characterized Cold War gaming behind the Iron Curtain.

PC Gamer brings word of a series of recently approved Russian economic orders from the Kremlin. Amid talk of airport and museum funding, ocean shipping, and road construction is the somewhat bewildering instruction for the government to (machine translation):

consider the issue of organizing the production of stationary and portable game consoles and game consoles, as well as the creation of an operating system and a cloud system for delivering games and programs to users

Oh, is that all?

A massive undertaking

Gaming technology isn’t a completely new area of focus for the Russian government. In 2022, the Ministry of Digital Development reportedly started discussing the possibility of creating a homegrown domestic Russian game engine. But building an entire gaming platform from scratch would be an even bigger undertaking.

To be fair, building your own game console today is a bit easier than it would have been in a different era. Open source platforms like Android can provide a good starting point for a bespoke gaming operating system (it worked for Ouya, kind of), while off-the-shelf, system-on-a-chip solutions can save a lot of the hardware engineering work needed to develop a new console.

But even if those issues get “solved,” the Russian government would still have to build the other scaffolding that supports a robust gaming platform. Crafting features like payment processing, game downloads, online play, moderation, quality control, and more is not a simple undertaking, even for major conglomerates like Microsoft or Valve. And that’s before you get into attracting the developers that would need to create the actual games for this new platform.

Building a bare-bones Steam Deck competitor isn't nearly as hard as building out the platform that supports that hardware.

Enlarge / Building a bare-bones Steam Deck competitor isn’t nearly as hard as building out the platform that supports that hardware.

Valve

Speaking to Russian-language newspaper Kommersant, Anton Fomin, the head of retail projects for mobile phone company Fplus, said, “In Russia, no one has the expertise that would allow them to produce their own PlayStation or Xbox-level console” (according to a machine translation). An unnamed expert source also told Kommersant that creating a full system would take Russia 5 to 10 years and 5 to 10 billion rubles ($54 to $108 million) just to get a gaming platform that would “lag behind already existing foreign solutions in terms of parameters by 10 to 15 years.”

The fact that Russia is even contemplating this kind of move might reflect the wider state of the country’s gaming sector. A 2023 survey found a significant majority of Russian gamers resorting to piracy for their gaming fix as legitimate access to foreign games dwindled. Russian job listing data from last year also suggests that Russia’s domestic game development has withered by up to 40 percent since the start of the Ukraine war.

But this isn’t the first time Russia has been forced to bootstrap its own homegrown gaming industry. In the waning days of the Cold War, Soviet engineers cut off from the Western gaming market created a variety of odd knock-off arcade machines and hundreds of amateur computer games, including many with surprisingly activist themes. If that era of Russian gaming could create something like Tetris, maybe the idea of a new Russian gaming platform isn’t completely ridiculous.

The Russian government has until June 15 to make its recommendations about the feasibility of any domestic game console creation plans.

Largely cut off from Western games, Russia looks into a homegrown game console Read More »

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Never-before-seen data wiper may have been used by Russia against Ukraine

Biz & IT, data wipers, russia, Security, Ukraine / /

KREMLIN FINGERPRINTS —

AcidRain, discovered in 2022, is tied to AcidPour. Both are attributed to Russia.

–

Never-before-seen data wiper may have been used by Russia against Ukraine

Getty Images

Researchers have unearthed never-before-seen wiper malware tied to the Kremlin and an operation two years ago that took out more than 10,000 satellite modems located mainly in Ukraine on the eve of Russia’s invasion of its neighboring country.

AcidPour, as researchers from security firm Sentinel One have named the new malware, has stark similarities to AcidRain, a wiper discovered in March 2022 that Viasat has confirmed was used in the attack on its modems earlier that month. Wipers are malicious applications designed to destroy stored data or render devices inoperable. Viasat said AcidRain was installed on more than 10,000 Eutelsat KA-SAT modems used by the broadband provider seven days prior to the March 2022 discovery of the wiper. AcidRain was installed on the devices after attackers gained access to the company’s private network.

Sentinel One, which also discovered AcidRain, said at the time that the earlier wiper had enough technical overlaps with malware the US government attributed to the Russian government in 2018 to make it likely that AcidRain and the 2018 malware, known as VPNFilter, were closely linked to the same team of developers. In turn, Sentinel One’s report Thursday noting the similarities between AcidRain and AcidPour provides evidence that AcidPour was also created by developers working on behalf of the Kremlin.

Technical similarities include:

  • Use of the same reboot mechanism
  • The exact logic of recursive directory wiping
  • The same IOCTL-based wiping mechanism.

AcidPour also shares programming similarities with another piece of malware attributed to Sandworm: CaddyWiper, which was used against various targets in Ukraine.

“AcidPour is programmed in C without relying on statically compiled libraries or imports,” Thursday’s report noted. “Most functionality is implemented via direct syscalls, many called through the use of inline assembly and opcodes.” Developers of CaddyWiper used the same approach.

Bolstering the theory that AcidPour was created by the same Russian threat group behind previous attacks on Ukraine, a representative with Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection told Cyberscoop that AcidPour was linked to UAC-0165, a splinter group associated with Sandworm (a much larger threat group run by Russia’s military intelligence unit, GRU). Representatives with the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine didn’t immediately answer an email seeking comment for this post.

Sandworm has a long history of targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure. Ukrainian officials said last September that UAC-0165 regularly props up fake hacktivist personas to take credit for attacks the group carries out.

Sentinel One researchers Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade and Tom Hegel went on to speculate that AcidPour was used to disrupt multiple Ukrainian telecommunications networks, which have been down since March 13, three days before the researchers discovered the new wiper. They point to statements a persona known as SolntsepekZ made on Telegram that took responsibility for hacks that took out Triangulum, a consortium providing telephone and Internet services under the Triacom brand, and Misto TV.

A message a persona known as SolntsepekZ posted to Telegram.

A message a persona known as SolntsepekZ posted to Telegram.

Sentinel One

The weeklong outage has been confirmed anecdotally and by Network intelligence firm Kentik and content delivery network Cloudflare, with the latter indicating the sites remained inoperable at the time this post went live on Ars. As of Thursday afternoon California time, Misto-TV’s website displayed the following network outage notice:

Outage notice displayed on Misto-TV's website.

Enlarge / Outage notice displayed on Misto-TV’s website.

“At this time, we cannot confirm that AcidPour was used to disrupt these ISPs,” Guerrero-Saade and Hegel wrote in Thursday’s post. “The longevity of the disruption suggests a more complex attack than a simple DDoS or nuisance disruption. AcidPour, uploaded 3 days after this disruption started, would fit the bill for the requisite toolkit. If that’s the case, it could serve as another link between this hacktivist persona and specific GRU operations.”

The researchers added:

“The transition from AcidRain to AcidPour, with its expanded capabilities, underscores the strategic intent to inflict significant operational impact. This progression reveals not only a refinement in the technical capabilities of these threat actors but also their calculated approach to select targets that maximize follow-on effects, disrupting critical infrastructure and communications.”

Never-before-seen data wiper may have been used by Russia against Ukraine Read More »

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Russia’s next-generation rocket is a decade old and still flying dummy payloads

angara, angara a5, launch, russia, Science, Space, vostochny / /

A winding road —

Russia’s heavy-lift Angara A5 rocket is about to launch on its fourth test flight.

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Technicians assemble an Angara A5 rocket at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East.

Enlarge / Technicians assemble an Angara A5 rocket at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East.

Roscosmos

By some measures, Russia’s next-generation flagship rocket program—the Angara—is now three decades old. The Russian government approved the development of the Angara rocket in 1992, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union ushered in a prolonged economic recession.

It has been nearly 10 years since Russia launched the first Angara test flights. The heaviest version of the Angara rocket family—the Angara A5—is about to make its fourth flight, and like the three launches before, this mission won’t carry a real satellite.

This next launch will be a milestone for the beleaguered Angara rocket program because it will be the first Angara flight from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s newest launch site in the country’s far east. The previous Angara launches were based out of the military-run Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

All dressed up and nowhere to go

On Wednesday, Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said technicians at Vostochny have fueled the Angara A5’s Orion upper stage and will soon install it on the rest of the rocket. The Angara A5 will roll to its launch pad a few days before liftoff, currently scheduled for next month.

The Angara A5 rocket is supposed to replace Russia’s Proton launch vehicle, which uses toxic propellant and only launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Angara’s launch pads are on Russian territory. Until a few years ago, the Proton was a competitor in the global commercial launch market, but the rocket lost its position due to reliability problems, competitive pressure from SpaceX, and the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian officials once touted Angara as a successor to Proton on the commercial market. Now, Angara will solely serve the Russian government, but it’s doubtful the government has enough demand to fill the Angara A5’s heavy launch capacity on a regular basis. According to RussianSpaceWeb.com, a website run by veteran Russian space reporter Anatoly Zak, the Russian government didn’t have any functional satellites ready to fly on the upcoming Angara A5 launch from Vostochny.

Eventually, the Angara A5 could take over the launch responsibility of the handful of large satellites that require the capacity of the Proton rocket. But this is a small number of flights. The Proton has launched three times in the last two years, and there are roughly a dozen Proton launch vehicles remaining in Russia’s inventory.

Russia plans a next-generation crew spacecraft, Orel, that officials claim will begin launching on the Angara A5 rocket in 2028. There’s no evidence Orel could be ready for test flights within four years. So, while the Angara rocket is finally flying, albeit at an anemic rate, there aren’t many payloads for Russia to put on it.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Angara rocket's launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome last year.

Enlarge / North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Angara rocket’s launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome last year.

Russia’s economic woes might explain some of the delays that have befallen the Angara program since 1992, but Russia’s space program has long suffered from chronic underfunding, mismanagement, and corruption. Angara is the only rocket Russia has developed from scratch since the 1980s, and the Russian government selected Khrunichev, one of the country’s oldest space companies, to oversee the Angara program.

Finally, in 2014, Russia launched the first two Angara test flights, one with a single-booster lightweight version of the rocket, called the Angara 1.2, and another with the heavy-lift Angara A5, made up of five Angara rocket cores combined into one rocket.

The Angara A5 can place up to 24.5 metric tons (about 54,000 pounds) into low-Earth orbit, according to Khrunichev. The expendable rocket has enough power to launch modules for a space station or deploy the Russian military’s largest spy satellites, but in 2020, each Angara A5 reportedly cost more than $100 million, significantly more than the Proton.

The smaller Angara 1.2 has flown twice since 2014, but both missions delivered functional satellites into orbit for the Russian military. The much larger Angara A5 has launched three times, all with dummy payloads. The most recent Angara A5 launch in 2021 failed due to a problem with the rocket’s Persei upper stage. The Orion upper stage set to fly on the next Angara A5 mission is a modified version of the Persei, which is itself modeled on the Block-DM upper stage, a design with its roots in the 1960s.

Essentially, the Angara A5 flight will allow engineers to test out changes to the upper stage and allow Russia to activate a second launch pad at Vostochny, which itself has been mired in corruption and delays. Medium-lift Soyuz rockets have been flying from Vostochny since 2016.

Russia’s next-generation rocket is a decade old and still flying dummy payloads Read More »

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DOJ quietly removed Russian malware from routers in US homes and businesses

Biz & IT, china, DDoS, department of justice, DoJ, Fancy Bear, fbi, routers, russia, Security, ubiquiti / /

Fancy Bear —

Feds once again fix up compromised retail routers under court order.

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Ethernet cable plugged into a router LAN port

Getty Images

More than 1,000 Ubiquiti routers in homes and small businesses were infected with malware used by Russian-backed agents to coordinate them into a botnet for crime and spy operations, according to the Justice Department.

That malware, which worked as a botnet for the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear, was removed in January 2024 under a secret court order as part of “Operation Dying Ember,” according to the FBI’s director. It affected routers running Ubiquiti’s EdgeOS, but only those that had not changed their default administrative password. Access to the routers allowed the hacking group to “conceal and otherwise enable a variety of crimes,” the DOJ claims, including spearphishing and credential harvesting in the US and abroad.

Unlike previous attacks by Fancy Bear—that the DOJ ties to GRU Military Unit 26165, which is also known as APT 28, Sofacy Group, and Sednit, among other monikers—the Ubiquiti intrusion relied on a known malware, Moobot. Once infected by “Non-GRU cybercriminals,” GRU agents installed “bespoke scripts and files” to connect and repurpose the devices, according to the DOJ.

The DOJ also used the Moobot malware to copy and delete the botnet files and data, according to the DOJ, and then changed the routers’ firewall rules to block remote management access. During the court-sanctioned intrusion, the DOJ “enabled temporary collection of non-content routing information” that would “expose GRU attempts to thwart the operation.” This did not “impact the routers’ normal functionality or collect legitimate user content information,” the DOJ claims.

“For the second time in two months, we’ve disrupted state-sponsored hackers from launching cyber-attacks behind the cover of compromised US routers,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a press release.

The DOJ states it will notify affected customers to ask them to perform a factory reset, install the latest firmware, and change their default administrative password.

Christopher A. Wray, director of the FBI, expanded on the Fancy Bear operation and international hacking threats generally at the ongoing Munich Security Conference. Russia has recently targeted underwater cables and industrial control systems worldwide, Wray said, according to a New York Times report. And since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has focused on the US energy sector, Wray said.

The past year has been an active time for attacks on routers and other network infrastructure. TP-Link routers were found infected in May 2023 with malware from a reportedly Chinese-backed group. In September, modified firmware in Cisco routers was discovered as part of a Chinese-backed intrusion into multinational companies, according to US and Japanese authorities. Malware said by the DOJ to be tied to the Chinese government was removed from SOHO routers by the FBI last month in similar fashion to the most recently revealed operation, targeting Cisco and Netgear devices that had mostly reached their end of life and were no longer receiving security patches.

In each case, the routers provided a highly valuable service to the groups; that service was secondary to whatever primary aims later attacks might have. By nesting inside the routers, hackers could send commands from their overseas locations but have the traffic appear to be coming from a far more safe-looking location inside the target country or even inside a company.

Similar inside-the-house access has been sought by international attackers through VPN products, as in the three different Ivanti vulnerabilities discovered recently.

DOJ quietly removed Russian malware from routers in US homes and businesses Read More »

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Rocket Report: Falcon 9 flies for 300th time; an intriguing launch from Russia

ariane 6, Commercial space, launch, missile defense, rocket report, russia, Science, Space, spacex, starship / /

Co-planar —

Starship is fully stacked in South Texas for the rocket’s third test flight.

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The upper stage for the first Ariane 6 flight vehicle is seen inside its factory in Bremen, Germany. The upper stage's hydrogen-fueled Vinci engine is visible in this image.

Enlarge / The upper stage for the first Ariane 6 flight vehicle is seen inside its factory in Bremen, Germany. The upper stage’s hydrogen-fueled Vinci engine is visible in this image.

Welcome to Edition 6.31 of the Rocket Report! Photographers at Cape Canaveral, Florida, noticed a change to the spaceport’s skyline this week. Blue Origin has erected a full-size simulator of its New Glenn rocket vertically on its launch pad for a series of fit checks and tests. Late last year, we reported Blue Origin was serious about getting the oft-delayed New Glenn rocket off the ground by the end of 2024. This is a good sign of progress toward that goal, but there’s a long, long way to go. It was fun to watch preparations for the inaugural flights of a few other heavy-lift rockets in the last couple of years (Starship, SLS, and Vulcan). This year, it’s New Glenn.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Russia launches a classified satellite. On February 9, Russia launched its first orbital mission of the year with the liftoff of a Soyuz-2-1v rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the far north of the country. The two-stage rocket delivered a classified satellite into orbit for the Russian military, Anatoly Zak of RussianSpaceWeb.com reports. In keeping with the Russian military’s naming convention, the satellite is known simply as Kosmos 2575, and there’s little indication about what it will do in space, except for one key fact.

But wait, there’s more … It turns out the launch of Kosmos 2575 occurred at exactly the same time of day as another Soyuz-2-1v rocket launched on December 27 with a Russian military satellite named Kosmos 2574. The newer spacecraft launched into the same orbital plane as Kosmos 2574, a strong indication that the two satellites have a shared mission. In recent years, Russia has tested rendezvous, proximity operations, and, at least in one instance, a projectile that would have applications for an anti-satellite weapon. You can be sure the US military and a global community of hobbyist satellite trackers will watch closely to see if these two satellites approach one another. If they do, they could continue technology demonstrations for an anti-satellite system. It’s unclear if the recent revelations regarding US officials’ concerns about Russian anti-satellite capabilities are related to these recent launches.

European startup testing methane-fueled rocket engine. Space transportation startup The Exploration Company has continued testing its methane-fueled Huracán engine, which will power an in-space and lunar transportation vehicle under development, European Spaceflight reports. Most recently, the Huracán engine completed another round of thrust chamber testing using liquid methane fuel as a coolant and tested a new thermal barrier coating. The methane/liquid oxygen engine is undergoing testing at a facility in Lampoldshausen, Germany, ahead of use on The Exploration Company’s Nyx Moon spacecraft, a transfer vehicle designed for transportation to and from cislunar space and also capable of Moon landings. The Nyx Moon is an evolution of a transfer vehicle the European startup is developing to ferry satellites between different orbits around Earth.

Other uses for Huracán… The Exploration Company appears to be positioning itself not only as a builder and operator of orbital and lunar transfer vehicles but also as a propulsion supplier to other space companies. In 2022, The Exploration Company received funding for the Huracán engine from the French government. At the time, the company described the engine as serving the needs of “the upper stages of small launchers and those of orbital vehicles.” (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Rocket Report: Falcon 9 flies for 300th time; an intriguing launch from Russia Read More »

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Backdoors that let cops decrypt messages violate human rights, EU court says

csam, e2ee, email, end to end encryption, end-to-end, European Commission, European Court of Human Rights, European Court of Justice, European Union, Freedom of speech, Online Privacy, Policy, Private messaging, russia, telegram, Terrorism / /
Building of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (France).

Enlarge / Building of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (France).

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that weakening end-to-end encryption disproportionately risks undermining human rights. The international court’s decision could potentially disrupt the European Commission’s proposed plans to require email and messaging service providers to create backdoors that would allow law enforcement to easily decrypt users’ messages.

This ruling came after Russia’s intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service (FSS), began requiring Telegram to share users’ encrypted messages to deter “terrorism-related activities” in 2017, ECHR’s ruling said. A Russian Telegram user alleged that FSS’s requirement violated his rights to a private life and private communications, as well as all Telegram users’ rights.

The Telegram user was apparently disturbed, moving to block required disclosures after Telegram refused to comply with an FSS order to decrypt messages on six users suspected of terrorism. According to Telegram, “it was technically impossible to provide the authorities with encryption keys associated with specific users,” and therefore, “any disclosure of encryption keys” would affect the “privacy of the correspondence of all Telegram users,” the ECHR’s ruling said.

For refusing to comply, Telegram was fined, and one court even ordered the app to be blocked in Russia, while dozens of Telegram users rallied to continue challenging the order to maintain Telegram services in Russia. Ultimately, users’ multiple court challenges failed, sending the case before the ECHR while Telegram services seemingly tenuously remained available in Russia.

The Russian government told the ECHR that “allegations that the security services had access to the communications of all users” were “unsubstantiated” because their request only concerned six Telegram users.

They further argued that Telegram providing encryption keys to FSB “did not mean that the information necessary to decrypt encrypted electronic communications would become available to its entire staff.” Essentially, the government believed that FSB staff’s “duty of discretion” would prevent any intrusion on private life for Telegram users as described in the ECHR complaint.

Seemingly most critically, the government told the ECHR that any intrusion on private lives resulting from decrypting messages was “necessary” to combat terrorism in a democratic society. To back up this claim, the government pointed to a 2017 terrorist attack that was “coordinated from abroad through secret chats via Telegram.” The government claimed that a second terrorist attack that year was prevented after the government discovered it was being coordinated through Telegram chats.

However, privacy advocates backed up Telegram’s claims that the messaging services couldn’t technically build a backdoor for governments without impacting all its users. They also argued that the threat of mass surveillance could be enough to infringe on human rights. The European Information Society Institute (EISI) and Privacy International told the ECHR that even if governments never used required disclosures to mass surveil citizens, it could have a chilling effect on users’ speech or prompt service providers to issue radical software updates weakening encryption for all users.

In the end, the ECHR concluded that the Telegram user’s rights had been violated, partly due to privacy advocates and international reports that corroborated Telegram’s position that complying with the FSB’s disclosure order would force changes impacting all its users.

The “confidentiality of communications is an essential element of the right to respect for private life and correspondence,” the ECHR’s ruling said. Thus, requiring messages to be decrypted by law enforcement “cannot be regarded as necessary in a democratic society.”

Martin Husovec, a law professor who helped to draft EISI’s testimony, told Ars that EISI is “obviously pleased that the Court has recognized the value of encryption and agreed with us that state-imposed weakening of encryption is a form of indiscriminate surveillance because it affects everyone’s privacy.”

Backdoors that let cops decrypt messages violate human rights, EU court says Read More »

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Ukrainian cells and Internet still out, 1 day after suspected Russian cyberattack

Biz & IT, cellular, cyberattack, Internet, russia, Security, Ukraine / /

PLEASE STAND BY —

Hackers tied to Russian military take responsibility for hack on Ukraine’s biggest provider.

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A service center for

Enlarge / A service center for “Kyivstar”, a Ukrainian telecommunications company, that provides communication services and data transmission based on a broad range of fixed and mobile technologies.

Getty Images

Ukrainian civilians on Wednesday grappled for a second day of widespread cellular phone and Internet outages after a cyberattack, purportedly carried out by Kremlin-supported hackers, hit the country’s biggest mobile phone and Internet provider a day earlier.

Two separate hacking groups with ties to the Russian government took responsibility for Tuesday’s attack striking Kyivstar, which has said it serves 24.3 million mobile subscribers and more than 1.1 million home Internet users. One group, calling itself Killnet, said on Telegram that “an attack was carried out on Ukrainian mobile operators, as well as on some banks,” but didn’t elaborate or provide any evidence. A separate group known as Solntsepek said on the same site that it took “full responsibility for the cyberattack on Kyivstar” and had “destroyed 10,000 computers, more than 4,000 servers, and all cloud storage and backup systems.” The post was accompanied by screenshots purporting to show someone with control over the Kyivstar systems.

In the city of Lviv, street lights remained on after sunrise and had to be disconnected manually, because Internet-dependent automated power switches didn’t work, according to NBC News. Additionally, the outage prevented shops throughout the country from processing credit payments and many ATMs from functioning, the Kyiv Post said.

The outage also disrupted air alert systems that warn residents in multiple cities of incoming missile attacks, a Ukrainian official said on Telegram. The outage forced authorities to rely on backup alarms.

“Cyber ​​specialists of the Security Service of Ukraine and ‘Kyivstar’ specialists, in cooperation with other state bodies, continue to restore the network after yesterday’s hacker attack,” officials with the Security Service of Ukraine said. “According to preliminary calculations, it is planned to restore fixed Internet for households on December 13, as well as start the launch of mobile communication and Internet. The digital infrastructure of ‘Kyivstar’ was critically damaged, so the restoration of all services in compliance with the necessary security protocols takes time.”

Kyivstar suspended mobile and Internet service on Tuesday after experiencing what company CEO Oleksandr Komarov said was an “unprecedented cyberattack” by Russian hackers. The attack represents one of the biggest compromises on a civilian telecommunications provider ever and one of the most disruptive so far in the 21-month Russia-Ukraine war. Kyivstar’s website remained unavailable at the time this post went live on Ars.

According to a report by the New Voice of Ukraine, hackers infiltrated Kyivstar’s infrastructure after first hacking into an internal employee account.

Solntsepek, one of two groups taking responsibility for the attack, has links to “Sandworm,” the name researchers use to track a hacking group that works on behalf of a unit within the Russian military known as the GRU. Sandworm has been tied to some of the most destructive cyberattacks in history, most notably the NotPetya worm, which caused an estimated $10 billion in damage worldwide. Researchers have also attributed Ukrainian power outages in 2015 and 2016 to the group.

Ukrainian cells and Internet still out, 1 day after suspected Russian cyberattack Read More »