Don't underestimate pro-Russia hacktivists, warns UK NCSC

"The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is once again warning that pro-Russia hacktivists are a threat to critical services operators. The cyber arm of the UK's sigint specialists at GCHQ specifically highlighted local authorities, including regional governments, and critical national infrastructure (CNI) organizations as being at an acute risk of hacktivist denial of attacks. These are typically denial-of-service (DoS) in nature, but the cyber defense crew warned orgs not to underestimate the damage these simple attacks can do."

"In a fresh alert published on Monday, the NCSC said DoS attacks on Russia's usual targets can disrupt entire systems, and also hit operators with financial and productivity costs when they are recovering from them. All organizations should be working to improve their resilience to DoS attacks, the agency said, and not just local authorities and CNI organizations."

"We continue to see Russian-aligned hacktivist groups targeting UK organizations, and although denial-of-service attacks may be technically simple, their impact can be significant. By overwhelming important websites and online systems, these attacks can prevent people from accessing the essential services they depend on every day."

"The advisory named the Cyber Army of Russia Reborn (CARR), Z-Pentest, and Sector16 as some of the groups responsible for the attacks on Western organizations. The law enforcement partners also included NoName057(16) in the list, the only group that the NCSC mentione"

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre warns that pro-Russia hacktivist groups pose a renewed threat to operators of critical services. Local authorities, regional governments and critical national infrastructure organizations face acute risk from hacktivist denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. DoS attacks can disrupt entire systems and impose financial and productivity costs during recovery. Organizations across sectors should improve resilience to DoS attacks rather than assuming the risk is limited to CNI or local government. The advisory named groups including the Cyber Army of Russia Reborn (CARR), Z-Pentest, Sector16 and NoName057(16) among those responsible for attacks on Western organizations.

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