Ukraine calls on hackers to help cyber defence against Russia

The government of Ukraine has been asking for volunteers from the country's hacker underground to help defend critical infrastructure and conduct cyber spying missions against Russian troops.

As Russian forces attacked cities across Ukraine, according to two people involved in the project, requests for volunteers began to appear on hacker forums on Thursday morning, as many residents fled the capital Kiev.

"Ukrainian cybercommunity! It's time to get involved in the cyber defence of our country," the post read, asking hackers and cybersecurity experts to submit an application via Google docs.

Yegor Aushev, the co-founder of a cybersecurity company in Kiev, told Reuters news agency that he wrote the post at the request of a senior Defense Ministry official who contacted him on Thursday. 

The effort to build a cyber military force is coming late in the game, Aushev acknowledged.

Aushev said the volunteers would be divided into defensive and offensive cyber units. 

The defensive unit would be employed to defend infrastructures such as power plants and water systems.

The offensive volunteer unit Aushev said he is organising would help Ukraine's military conduct digital espionage operations against invading Russian forces.

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Cyber army

Reached late Thursday night in Ukraine, Aushev said he already had received hundreds of applicants and was going to begin vetting to ensure that none of them were Russian agents.

"We have an army inside our country," Aushev said. 

Another person directly involved in the effort confirmed that the request came from the Defense Ministry but ministry representatives did not respond to a request for comment. 

On Wednesday, a newly discovered piece of destructive software was found circulating in Ukraine, hitting hundreds of computers, according to researchers at the cybersecurity firm ESET. 

Suspicion fell on Russia, which has repeatedly been accused of hacks against Ukraine and other countries. 

The victims included government agencies and a financial institution, Reuters previously reported.

Russia has denied the allegations.

In a 2015 cyberattack, widely attributed to Russian state hackers, 225,000 Ukrainians lost electricity.

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