The Ukrainian government formed a cyber army or IT Army to carry out cyberattacks on Russia.
The IT Army was recruited from volunteers consisting of security researchers to hackers.
The Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mykhaylo Fedorov announced that they need volunteer digital talent for the IT Army to fight Russia through cyberspace.
After the announcement, a Telegram channel appeared to manage IT Army operations and contained 31 Russian targets.
The list includes websites of Russian government agencies, IP addresses, government storage devices to email servers, three banks, large companies that support critical infrastructure, to the Russian search engine and email portal, Yandex.
Quoting Bleeping Computer, Monday (2/28/2022), the IT Army's invitation also emerged after the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense recruited an underground hacker community to help Russia cyber warfare.
This invitation came from Cyber Unit Technologies Founder Yegor Aushev, who shared the form on Facebook.
He claims that hackers worldwide have signed up to help Ukraine, some of them even from Russia.
This volunteer hacker and cybersecurity researcher seem to have gotten to work.
Several websites of the Kremlin (Russian government), State Duma (Russian legislature), and the Ministry of Defense were downed by DDoS attacks.
The IT Army's invitation is indeed considered to be tempting those who are furious with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
However, it is important to note that cyberattacks such as DDoS or tampering with other websites are illegal, regardless of the target.
The CEO of Dragos, Robert Lee, said this cyberattack could jeopardize law enforcement and legitimate government operations.
On the other hand, governments of other countries helping Ukraine may turn a blind eye to cyberattacks targeting Russia.
However, it is important to consider the legal consequences of such attacks.