Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers by Wired’s Andy Greenberg is most certainly a facinating story regarding Russia’s cyber attacks upon Ukraine. In fact, the backstory to Sandworm is quite remarkable. Attacks by Russia against Ukraine are just the latest in a long history of Russian aggression.
Greenberg’s work is certainly remarkable. This provides deep storylines linking Russia to NotPetya, a ransomware attack launched against Ukraine in 2016. Elements of this attack were initially launched as reconnaissance in the prior year.
At the same time, Greenberg provides amazing details regarding cyber attacks Moonlight Maze, Operation Aurora on America by Russia and China.
Indeed Sandworm provides a historical view between Russia and Ukraine upon the heels of World War II.
Harvest of Sorrow
In this period, Stalin produced a truely horrific famine across Ukraine. Unquestionably, the exploitation of Ukraine by the Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany resulted in the torture and death of millions of Ukrainians. Greenberg notes the unbelievable but true horror by author Anne Applebaum in Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine:
“stories of desperate peasants resorting to eating leather and rodents, grass, and, in states of starvation-induced mania, even their own children. All of this occurred in one of the most fertile grain-production regions in the world.”
Red Famine by Anne Applebaum
In addition, these horrific attacks are echoed in Harvest of Sorrow by Soviet scholar Robert Conquest. Red Famine’s lessons provide a razor sharp backdrop to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine following the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. This is only the latest attack in a long confrontation between Russia and Ukraine.
