The Russian aggression against Ukraine will have impacts far beyond the region…¿And Taiwán?

By Bob Gourley –Especial Total News Agency-TNA-

 All companies and all government organizations (including those at local and state levels) should evaluate the potential impact of these hostilities on operations.

Those organizations that have a formal Crisis Management Plan should activate it if it has not been done already.

The Russian aggression against Ukraine for years but when the current crisis led us to assess that Putin had made up his mind to invade we reported (in December) that: “…when an adversary tells you what they will do you have to take that into account. And at this point all indications from Putin are that Russia intends on invading Ukraine.”

Since then we have been expanding on our reporting and analysis with a focus on providing executive level resources, references and guidance that can be critical to protecting corporate value and ensuring government missions as the crisis expands.

Below is a compilation of these resources.

Russia Invades Ukraine: The capabilities of Russia to conduct cyber espionage and cyber attack have been battle tested and are hard to thwart even during daily “peacetime” operations. They include well resourced capabilities of the military and intelligence services and also deep technical expertise in the Russian business ecosystem and in organized crime which operates as part of Russian national power.

Proof points of Russian capabilities include the massive and sophisticated Solar Winds attacks which leveraged low and slow, well thought out plans to achieve access to multiple well-protected targets.

Ransomware successes by Russian based criminal networks are also instructive as to the capability of Russian cyber threat actors.

 The use of malicious self replicating code (worms/virus/trojan) to spread malicious code into infrastructure is also well proven with decades of practice including fielding software that replicates from unclassified to classified systems in the military and spreads throughout critical infrastructure. This post goes beyond an articulation of the threat into recommendations leaders seeking to mitigate cyber threats from Russia including threats before, during and after a Ukraine invasion.

The Threat To Space Based Systems  recently updated the analysis below on threats to space based assets , because of tensions with Russia and continued testing of satellite destruction capabilities the most recent of which , caused significant increases in dangerous space debris.

 We recommend this be read in conjunction with our report on what  needs to know about the cybersecurity threats due to the coming Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Will China Replicate Russia’s Cyber Offensives in a Taiwan Reunification?

 The current situation in the Ukraine has garnered the world’s attention with stakeholders watching attentively as the crisis unfolds.

Such regional hotspots have the potential of spilling over into neighboring countries and pulling in governments from all over the world in some capacity.

The threat of armed conflict escalating into a major global engagement is always a possibility. China and Taiwan are eagerly watching the crisis as well, but largely for different reasons.

While Taiwan is interested to see how friendly governments come to Ukraine’s aid, China is observing how Russia may go about reclaiming territory of the former Soviet Union, in the attempts of gaining insight into how such an act can be accomplished successfully, should Moscow do just that.