An attack on Viasat's satellite internet as Russia started its war impacted 27K users in Europe beyond Ukraine; thousands remain offline after almost a month
The biggest hack since Russia's war began knocked thousands of people offline. The spillover extends deep into Europe.
WiredMatt Burgess
Context & Ripple Effects
The attack on Viasat's KA-SAT network opened the Russia/Ukraine cyberwar on February 24, timed to the invasion itself, and US agencies including the NSA quickly began investigating what disabled the service across Europe (NSA probe).
This Wired report adds the spillover dimension: 27,000 users outside Ukraine were knocked offline and thousands were still down nearly a month later. Attribution followed in May, when the UK and EU formally named Russia as the attacker.
First-order effects
Roughly 27,000 Viasat subscribers in Europe beyond Ukraine lost connectivity at the war's outset, with thousands still offline almost a month later — a direct service failure for a commercial ISP's customer base.
Viasat faces an active multi-agency investigation into the intrusion while restoring service on its KA-SAT network.
Second-order effects
Formal UK/EU attribution of the attack to Russia converts a technical incident into a diplomatic one, raising the cost of future strikes on Western satellite operators.
The year-long fallout pushed governments and the satellite industry to rethink satellite cybersecurity, per Bloomberg's retrospective on the KA-SAT breach.
Third-order effects
Shared commercial satellite infrastructure is being reclassified as critical infrastructure with concentrated single points of failure — one modem-level compromise cascaded across national borders and civilian users.
If states treat civilian space communications as legitimate wartime targets, satellite operators will face defense-grade security requirements and government scrutiny previously reserved for military systems.
The trend: State cyber operations are increasingly aimed at shared civilian infrastructure, where a single strike on a satellite network produces cross-border outages far beyond the intended theater.
NEW: @mattburgess1 dives into the Viasat satellite ground network hack that impacted ~27k customers across Europe at the start of Russia's war, in addition to Ukrainian military networks. The attack has yet to be attributed, but Russia is, ofc, suspected https://www.wired.com/...
The Viasat hack stands out because of its spread. People in Poland, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and more have their internet connections disrupted. It looks like an incident of spillover. A month later, more than 2,000 wind turbines are offline https://www.wired.com/...
New from me: The biggest, publicly known, cyberattack since Russia invaded Ukraine knocked thousands of people offline. The attack—against a satellite communications system—impacted 27,000 users across Europe. Many of them still aren't back online https://www.wired.com/...
The attack bricked modems that hook up to people's satellite dishes at home. Most of the modems impacted have been rendered useless, until they're sent back to a factory and reprogrammed. What caused the damage is unclear, security researchers suspect a malicious firmware update
The Viasat hack is arguably the largest publicly known cyberattack to take place since Russia invaded Ukraine, and it stands out for its impact beyond Ukraine's borders. https://www.wired.co.uk/... Via @WIREDUK
Not many details available, but this is an interesting look into the future many of us have been worrying about for a long time https://www.wired.com/...
“However, the attack against Viasat may not have involved jamming. The attack against the network was a “deliberate, isolated, and external cyber event,” according to Viasat.” - Satellite Hack Spills Beyond Russia-Ukraine War | WIRED https://www.wired.com/...
The attack against Viasat started at the same time Russia invaded Ukraine, although it has not been attributed to Russia by any gov or company. Ukraine's military and police service does use satellite internet for its systems, gov procurement docs show
researchers had been warning about the big vulnerabilities in satellite networks for years, but because it wasn't TikTok it apparently was just ignored https://twitter.com/...
They were trying everything, trying to break in through our website, trying DDoS," said Kharchenko. “It was 24/7.” /// Inside Ukraine's cyber defence: the battle against Moscow's online salvos via @FT @MehulAtLarge https://www.ft.com/...
In the run-up of Russia's war against Ukraine, one obvious target for cyber-sabotage has been gov-owned power transmission company Ukrenergo. Besides regular break-in attempts apparently a local employee tried to enter premises to run malicious code https://www.ft.com/... https:/…
“The cyber attacks on the IT infrastructure [...] are the most complex cyber operation in history and are one of the first examples of what a real cyber war looks like.” @MehulAtLarge goes inside Ukraine's cyber defenses: https://www.ft.com/...
Fascinating inside account of how Ukraine fended off Russian cyber attacks in the first phase of the war. Just like on the ground though, the worry is a more grinding effort will wear down online defences - by @MehulAtLarge in @FT https://www.ft.com/...