Ukraine calls on Ukrainian hackers to help with its cybersecurity

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has asked a cybersecurity company to search for Ukrainian hackers and cybersecurity experts. The government wants to set up offensive and defensive teams around the war with Russia.

Ukrainian cybersecurity firm Cyber ​​Unit Technologies tells Reuters that it has been asked by the government to look for hackers and experts to help. The government is said to be looking for hackers through forums, among other things, with messages in which the government says it is ‘time to get involved in the cybersecurity of our country’.

The forum posts contain a link to a Google Docs file, where people can indicate their specialties such as malware development and their work history. According to CUT, the volunteers are divided into an offensive and a defensive team. That defensive team should, for example, secure infrastructure such as power plants and water systems. The offensive team is supposed to spy on Russian soldiers who invade the country. People who sign up are pre-screened for any Russian links.

Another, anonymous source confirms that the Ministry of Defense is behind the questions and has been looking for cyber hackers and experts since Thursday morning. The ministry declined to comment. Ukraine has no military cyber unit and said it plans to assemble such a team this year. This probably failed before Russia invaded the country on Thursday. Ukrainian sites were then repeatedly bombarded by cyber attacks. Ukraine said it had evidence that Russia was behind this.