Russia-aligned hackers want to hit West's infrastructure, Britain says

April 19 (UPI) -- Ideologically motivated hackers sympathetic to Russia and its invasion of Ukraine want to target the critical infrastructure of the democratic world, Britain's cybersecurity agency warned Wednesday.

Specifics about which Western countries and what critical infrastructure was being targeted were not identified in the Wednesday alert from Britain's National Cyber Security Center, but it said this "new class" of Russian hacker that is motivated not by financial gain but ideology has emerged over the last 18 months.

"Although these groups can align to Russia's perceived interests, they are often not subject to formal state control and so their actions are less constrained and their targeting broader than traditional cybercrime actors," the alert said. "This makes them less predictable."

While website defacements, misinformation dissemination and Distributed Denial of Service attacks, known as DDoS, meaning those that disrupt services, have been the focus of these hackers' cyberactivity, the NCSC warns that some have stated a desire to have a greater disruptive and destructive effect on the critical infrastructure of Western nations, including Britain.

"We expect these groups to look for opportunities to create such an impact, particularly if systems are poorly protected," it said.

"Without external assistance, we consider it unlikely that these groups have the capability to deliberately cause a destructive, rather than disruptive, impact in the short term. But they may become more effective over time, and so the NCSC is recommending that organizations act now to manage the risk against successful future attacks."

Oliver Dowden, Britain's Cabinet Office minister, spoke on the alert later Wednesday during a cybersecurity conference in Belfast.

He described the threat as being "the cyber equivalent of the Wagner group," which is a private Russian paramilitary organization of mercenaries that have been hired to fight in the Kremlin's war in Ukraine.

Initially, these groups focused their attacks on Ukraine but have been broadening their target to include Britain and its allies, he said, adding that because they are neither motivated by profit nor controlled by foreign states, they are "more opportunistic and less likely to show restraint."

"Together, those factors make the current situation particularly concerning," he said. "Disclosing this threat is not something that we do lightly."

He called the alert an "unprecedented warning for businesses" but stressed that they do not believe they have the capabilities to cause widespread damage to British infrastructure.