The Russian invasion of the Crimea and the turmoil in
Ukraine are all over the news. This most recent aggression seems to be following
the pattern set in Georgia and other countries perceived to rightly belong in
the Russian sphere of influence.
A tried and true Russian tactic is to control all
communications one way or another. By one way or another I mean through people
such as managing the state controlled media or via old fashioned kinetic action
as described in the Feb 28, 2013 article “Telecom services sabotaged in Ukraine’s
Crimea region” (see: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/02/28/Telecom-services-sabotaged-in-Ukraines-Crimea-region/7611393621345/
which is also the photo source)
NATO to include the US appears to have ruled out military
action, however the notion of Cyber influence in this particular case seems to
have a great deal of merit.
One of the advantages of being an Armchair Colonel is that
you can ponder almost anything with detachment. Given the demographics of the Ukraine, one
would think that if the intended audience was the Ukrainian population, then a cyber-campaign
focusing on mobile phones would be in order.
Multiple sources claim that there are about 60 million
mobile phones and 12 million land line phones used in the Ukraine. Presumably
these totals reflect devices bought from carriers within the country and do not
reflect devices brought in by travelers and others. The CIA Factbook showed 7.7
million Internet users back in 2009. Given the above it would appear that cyber PSYOP would be appropriate.
From an infrastructure perspective, there is only one
land-line provider in Crimea, Ukretelcom
(see http://en.ukrtelecom.ua/). Wikipedia lists 7 Mobile phone companies of
Ukraine (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile_phone_companies_of_Ukraine).
AT&T’s website says that they work through a number of carriers: Beeline,
Kyvivstar, Life, MTS and Ukrtelecom. Verizon’s website says that Voice, Data,
Messaging, Picture and video are available from Ukraine.
However, perhaps a more intriguing audience would be the
invading force themselves. Like soldiers from anywhere, these troops want to
stay in touch if they can so it is likely that they have brought their own
mobile phones. If so, they might represent a more lucrative influence target.
A campaign working either audience could consist of a family
of SMS messages with a predetermined pace and repetition factor. Alternatively,
barraging (similar to SPAM) of appropriate ISPs (assuming they’re up and functioning)
could be another avenue of influence attack. One could adopt a combination of
SPAM and phishing tactics to accomplish the influence goals.
From an intelligence perspective, if the commercial networks
are down due to Russian aggression, perhaps there is a network of Ham radio
operators who are able to communicate to the outside world and provide the eyes
on view.
Reader contributions encouraged.
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