[Thread] the Russia/Ukraine cyberwar reportedly opened with a Russian cyberattack on Viasat's satellite ISP KA-SAT, but Ukraine dominates the information space
per a BSI letter cited below. https://twitter.com/... @hatr : Spiegel now also reporting Viasat was likely hacked, in german gov assessment. Lines up with our reporting that routers which have received the update were not usable afterwards. https://www.spiegel.de/... https://twitter.com/... Dmitri Alperovitch / @dalperovitch : Taking out satellite modems and other communication devices in use in a war zone is one of the most effective uses of cyber during a kinetic conflict. It appears that is what has happened with Viasat satcom provider https://twitter.com/... Kevin Beaumont / @gossithedog : Government government “suspects” a cyber link to KA-SAT hack, based on it being heavily used by Ukraine military. https://www.spiegel.de/... Mihoko Matsubara / @m_miho_jpn : On February 28, Ukraine's SBU made its recruitment of allied volunteer hackers official. “It is the first time that states have openly called for citizens and volunteers to cyberattack another state,” said Harvard professor Gabriella Coleman. https://www.usnews.com/... @cybernews : #Ukraine's ‘IT army,’ a volunteer #hacker collective, announced it would target the #Russian #satellite-based navigation system, #GLONASS. #cybersecurity #Russia #space #Cyberwar #cyberattacks https://cybernews.com/...
@thegrugq
Context & Ripple Effects
Early reporting tied unusable KA-SAT routers and modems to a suspected attack timed with Russia's invasion. Subsequent coverage documented that the outage extended beyond Ukraine, with 27,000 European users affected and thousands still offline weeks later.
The incident moved quickly from a German-government assessment to an international attribution story: the UK and EU later said Russia launched the attack, while a later industry review said it prompted a rethink of satellite cybersecurity. Ukraine's SBU was also recruiting volunteer hackers, placing the service disruption alongside a broader cyber-mobilization effort.
First-order effects
Viasat and KA-SAT customers, including users in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, lose communications service as compromised devices become unusable.
Ukraine's military communications face an immediate vulnerability where KA-SAT capacity was heavily used, according to the reported German assessment.
Second-order effects
Satellite operators and their equipment suppliers must treat terminal and router update paths as operational-security risks, rather than only customer-service infrastructure.
European governments and allied agencies are pushed toward coordinated investigation and attribution, a process later reflected in the UK and EU attribution to Russia.
Third-order effects
Satellite connectivity becomes a more explicit wartime target and resilience priority, because disruption of civilian-facing infrastructure can also affect military users across borders.
If governments and operators act on the post-incident reassessment, satellite networks will be designed and governed more like critical infrastructure than isolated commercial communications services.
The trend: The war is making dual-use satellite communications a central cyber-conflict surface, linking endpoint security, military resilience, and cross-border civilian disruption.
Customers of satellite-based internet services in 🇩🇪 are told to not update their modems connecting to Viasat. According to email we obtained, the update “permanently destroys"/bricks the modem. further indication the outages are linked to cyber. https://www.tagesschau.de/...
Cyberattack on satellite internet provider KA-SAT. Tens of thousands of users in Europe, many in Ukraine (i.e. their military), “connection to the Ukraine conflict” is suspected. Also: “decisive step in their attack on the morning of the Russian attack”. https://www.spiegel.de/..…
Putin has been pumping poison into their heads for 20 years, every channel & outlet. For perspective, it took Trump, Facebook, and one cable news station a few months to turn a third of Americans against democracy. https://twitter.com/...
Very good thread from @thegrugq on the noise in cyberspace around the war 👇 “None of this [cyber] activity, beyond the opening salvo, looks like traditional cyberwar. It is criminals, and Twitter, and disinformation, and no critical national infrastructure” https://twitter.com/..…
If verified, this 👇is more like the sort of operation that would have been expected against Ukraine from Russia's cyber forces to accompany an invasion. That said, the actual impact of this on Ukraine seems hard to gauge https://twitter.com/...
Ukraine has some of the best social media operations during war I've seen. Look at this photo. [Photo: soldier sticking his middle finger up after shooting down a Russian attack helicopter]
Spiegel now also reporting Viasat was likely hacked, in german gov assessment. Lines up with our reporting that routers which have received the update were not usable afterwards. https://www.spiegel.de/... https://twitter.com/...
Taking out satellite modems and other communication devices in use in a war zone is one of the most effective uses of cyber during a kinetic conflict. It appears that is what has happened with Viasat satcom provider https://twitter.com/...
On February 28, Ukraine's SBU made its recruitment of allied volunteer hackers official. “It is the first time that states have openly called for citizens and volunteers to cyberattack another state,” said Harvard professor Gabriella Coleman. https://www.usnews.com/...
#Ukraine's ‘IT army,’ a volunteer #hacker collective, announced it would target the #Russian #satellite-based navigation system, #GLONASS. #cybersecurity #Russia #space #Cyberwar #cyberattacks https://cybernews.com/...
The war in Ukraine has provoked an onslaught of cyberattacks by apparent volunteers unlike any that security researchers have ever seen. https://www.seattletimes.com/ ...
Hacker warfare over Ukraine: “It's become an independent machine, a distributed international digital army. The biggest hacks against Russia will be soon.” His company offered $100,000 for flaws in code of Russian cyber targets. By @kateconger @satariano https://www.nytimes.com/.…