Secret Russian cyber attacks on the West ‘will lead to fatalities’

COVERT Russian cyber attacks against Western countries could cause civilian fatalities and potentially escalate into a real-world military confrontation, Latvia’s foreign minister has warned.

Edgars Rinkevics told The Daily Telegraph that Russia may use a massive war game this month to probe Nato’s resilience to full-spectrum “hybrid” warfare including propaganda and cyber attacks that Moscow has previously used against Ukraine. And he warned that deaths from deniable cyber attacks designed to test the “resilience and resolve” of the West by hitting key infrastructure like power grids could start a dangerous cycle of retaliation.

“What I am rather worried about is that this hidden cyber warfare can escalate to a level of cyber warfare where we are not going to talk about bank attacks or ransom payments,” Mr Rinkevics said.

“At some point people are going to die. If you get security systems down or hospitals left without power, then I am afraid that such kind of activity could provoke a very real military build-up.

“My concern is that at some point we are going to detect that there have been casualties because of cyber attacks, and we are able to trace where they came from. Then the situation can get much more tense.”

Western governments believe Russia has carried out several increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks against other countries since a massive denial of service attack against Estonia in 2007. In June this year sabotage software disguised as “ransomware” shut down businesses, government departments, and even airports in Ukraine before spreading around the world.

That attack prompted Nato to warn that a cyber attack on one of its members could trigger Article Five, the alliance’s mutual defence clause, in the same way as a conventional military attack. The Kremlin has denied carrying out cyber attacks on other countries.

Information security experts believe that most countries, including the UK, maintain an offensive cyber capability. Mr Renkevics said he expects Russia to further hone its cyber and other “hybrid” capabilities for potential conflict against the West later this month.

The Zapad (West) 2017 exercise will see Russian and Belarusian troops practise the outbreak of war with illegal armed groups backed by an imaginary “coalition of interested states” called Weisbaria, Weistoria and Lubinia. On the scenario map the imaginary countries correspond to Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, Maj Gen Oleg Belokonev, chief of the Belarusian general staff, said last week. Russia says the exercise is entirely defensive.

Its defence ministry has said 12,700 troops will take part in the drills in Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad, Pskov and Leningrad regions between Sept 14 and 20. Western analysts believe they are occurring simultaneously with othexercises across western Russia that could involve up to 100,000 troops.

“We are under no illusions about the Zapad 2017 exercise. It is not a defensive exercise – it is an offensive exercise in its nature,” said Mr Rinkevics.