Attack on 128th Brigade formation: SSU announces possible cause of tragedy

Attack on 128th Brigade formation: SSU announces possible cause of tragedy

The Security Service of Ukraine does not exclude the possibility that the missile attack by the invaders during the formation of the 128th separate mountain assault brigade occurred as a result of Russian hackers hacking the Signal messenger of one of the Ukrainian military personnel. This messenger contained correspondence regarding the time and place of gathering of brigade personnel for the award ceremony.

The head of the SSU Cybersecurity Department, Illya Vityuk, spoke about this in an interview with Ukrinform. He said that one of the Russian hacker groups is distributing phishing messages with the aim of hacking military messengers.

“One of the threats is the sending of phishing messages to hack the messengers of specific military personnel. They are sent by the hacker group “Armageddon”. Such messages are sent in the thousands. When they manage to “hack” the device, the enemy gains access to the messengers, to computers via email. Often. This leads to tragic consequences. During the investigation of one of the attacks, during which more than 30 of our military personnel were killed, we found that one of the devices on which the Signal messenger was installed received a message about the specific date and location of the formation of military personnel, where in the future a rocket arrived,” said Vityuk.

He confirmed that the investigation concerns a strike directed by the invaders against the 128th separate mountain assault battalion. One of the main versions currently being considered is that such a strike became possible due to technical penetration. Vityuk noted that this incident illustrates how dangerous the use of cyber means in military operations can be.