Ukraine Working to Codify its Volunteer Hacker Brigade
Ukraine's government is drafting a new law to bring its volunteer hacker brigade, the IT Army of Ukraine, into the armed forces.
State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection SSSCIP of Ukraine
The law is aimed at putting an end to any uncertainty about its status in what is considered a legal gray area.
The hacktivist group is a loosely organized group of volunteers that the Ukrainian Army is hoping to turn into a more formal force. It is made up of talented researchers, hackers, blue teamers, developers, and other technologically-savvy individuals.
The group has also recruited foreign volunteers. While its leadership claims to be small in numbers its total number of volunteers might be quite large and growing.
The group normally attacks Russian Governmental sites and has a list of 31 such sites it continues to target. The IT Army has drawn criticism for attacking civilian Russian banks, food delivery services, and video share sites.
According to Newsweek, if this passes, Ukraine will join other Western nations, including Finland and Estonia, that already have a full-scale reserve cyber force to augment their regular military, although several more countries have reserve military units with cyber capabilities.
Nataliya Tkachuk, Secretary of Ukraine's National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity, has stated that the new law would "become the basis for building the state's cyber defense capabilities, engaging cyber volunteers in these activities, and creating a cyber reserve.”
The IT Army welcomes the proposed law and has stated that:
Points of Interest
Ukraine's IT Army has been credited with stopping over 1300 attacks.
The IT Army has also taken credit for a successful DDOS attack against Russia.
The group is active on social media and has accounts on Telegram and Twitter in addition to its own GitHub repository.
The group’s main leadership is made up of Ukrainians.
The Hacktivist Group Anonymous has also joined the fight against Russia.
The group publishes its application form online via its Telegram page as well as other ways to volunteer to help Ukraine through VisitUkraine.today.